


normalcy is skin-deep

by Snowsheba



Series: there's dipifica over the horizon [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Protective Siblings, Reverse Falls, and a lot of it, chapters will be tagged with warnings as appropriate, extremely protective siblings, feel the heteronormativity, incredible number of headcanons, this was going to be 10k at the most and it is now 35k+
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-15 13:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 40,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5786308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowsheba/pseuds/Snowsheba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You do not, under any circumstances, try to be either Mabel or Dipper Gleeful's friend. It has the tendency to be hazardous to one's health.</p><p>Or: the color cyan, a girl whose curiosity would certainly kill a cat, and a little blue triangle's bid for freedom.</p><p>(Updates Tuesdays! But on a kind-of-sort-of hiatus as life bowls me over with a freight train.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the rules of the gleefuls' tent of telepathy

**Author's Note:**

> Just a couple of notes before we begin! First, ages have been jacked up. The kids are seventeen at this point in time, and Gideon Pines has been coming to Gravity Falls for five years now. And second, there will be blood. It will be gross. If you are grossed out by this kind of thing, stay safe and look out for the warnings I'll add to the beginning notes.
> 
> Warning: there's violence that is alluded to in the first and last sections of the first chapter!

“Dipper,” she said, leaning on the doorframe of his room, arms crossed across her chest.

“Mabel,” he answered without looking up from the Journal in his lap, perfectly still, back straight and fingers motionless above the pages. His voice was monotone and, to anyone else, it would seem as though he did not care about her presence; but his mind brushed against hers in a warm and familiar greeting, the amulet around his neck flaring a brief, bright cyan before settling for a cool glow, and she smiled.

“I have something I need cleaned up,” she said, walking over to drape herself over the back of his chair. She knew the pages of the Journal almost as well as Dipper did, and she let her eyes meander over the small, looping text without quite taking it in. “Do you mind?”

Between their psychic link passed a vague image of blood-spattered walls, a corpse torn to bits, jars upon jars neatly lined up on shelves, a feeling of euphoria and power, a sense of what needed to be done, what the body used to be and how the person had screamed in terror – and Dipper shook his head slightly as he shut the journal and stood, handing the book off to her, smoothing out wrinkles in his light blue shirt. “You were not gentle, sister,” he said, and there was no smile on his face but his eyes were crinkled at the edges.

“I have the blood I need,” Mabel answered, tucking the Journal under her arm as the soft blue carpet of their shared room bled into the hardwood of the hallway. Their feet were silent on the smooth surface, and a maid scurried by without meeting their eyes. “I kept some of the parts intact if that strikes your fancy.”

“I appreciate that,” Dipper said, their telepathic connection to each other transferred images and feelings and attitudes much faster than any words could; his gratefulness was palpable, at least for her. “Is Will satisfied?”

“If you mean he isn’t crying as much as he usually is, then yes,” Mabel said with no small degree of schadenfreude, “He is. Do you think you’ll be done by show time?”

“Three hours?” He let out a light, airy chuckle. His confidence was contagious. “Find me if I am not.”

Dipper knocked his shoulder against hers, and she linked their fingers and squeezed once before letting go; their respective farewells, as he was intent on the manor’s basement, she to put the journal behind the wards painstakingly set up years ago.

* * *

Dipper held his and his sister’s hand high as they welcomed the crowd, a small false smile on his face. Beside him, Mabel beamed, prideful and dangerous, and they took a single bow before Dipper stepped forward and Mabel stepped back, arms crossed and a playful expression on her face.

For the first act, Dipper always took volunteers and gently read their minds, distracting them with grand gestures and flares of cyan as Mabel peered deeper, scrounging passwords and PINs and credit card numbers; he could charm anyone into a flushed smile, knew just how much to give and how much more to hide, always saying just enough to seem mystical. This was who he was – it was Mabel who was the raw emotion and power, the endless strength that countered his calculated stride, and together they combed their eager audience for security deposits before ushering them back to their seats.

“Is anyone interested at all in hypnotism?” he asked the tent at large, smiling slightly. He didn’t need to use any of his powers to raise people’s hands, though he did anyway. “Could I perhaps have a volunteer – sister dear, if you would do the honors?”

Mabel’s fingers rested on his shoulder, a brief brush of a feather, before she stepped off the stage, gently floating herself down with a burst of magic before prowling through the tent. More than one tried to grab her attention, waving their arms and crying her name; Dipper kept a bland smirk on his face as he followed his sister’s train of thought, flitting from face to face until they stopped upon one he had not seen before.

Mabel leaned down and whispered in the girl’s ear, a devilish smile on her face – and then she was leading the blonde up to the stage, dressed atrociously in neons and a thick sweater, and Mabel slipped past Dipper to stand behind him again, posing with one hand on a cocked hip.

 _Pacifica Northwest_ , Dipper heard in his mind’s ear, courtesy of his sister, and he nodded ever slightly as he greeted, “Thank you, Ms. Northwest.” The girl stammered something incomprehensible, then flushed beet red when he flashed her what he knew as a kind smile. _Too easy_ , he thought, and heard Mabel choking down a laugh. “Please, have a seat.”

She sat. It was more like she fell backwards into her seat, hard enough that she might have injured herself had Dipper not pulled up the stool in the nick of time, and Mabel _snicked_ again. With a grand sweeping gesture of his arm, flaring his cape and accenting his smile, he said, “Please, a warm welcome for our dear volunteer!” Applause followed, and he stepped back to where Pacifica sat as Mabel stepped forward, quickly and easily beginning to introduce the act in more detail.

While she was doing that, he put a hand on the girl’s shoulder and leaned down. “I assure you that no harm will come to you during this demonstration, but should you feel uncomfortable, do let us know,” he told her, voice pitched low so the microphone would not quite pick up the sound. Pacifica stared back at him with wide eyes, and he flashed her a small smile. “Relax. You will do wonderfully.”

She wasn’t scared, he realized a moment later, pulling away and stepping around so he was to her left, quietly spinning her with his magic so she was facing him and ignoring her squeak. _How strange_ , especially considering her earlier demeanor, and he let the fake smile on his face widen as he touched the stone at his throat.

“Eyes on me, Ms. Northwest,” he said, gazing into hers, and she swallowed and nodded.

* * *

Pacifica felt nothing short of overwhelmed as she stared at the porcelain-perfect boy across from her, trying and failing to detect any change in her mental processes. She hadn’t even volunteered herself but couldn’t think of a single reason to refuse, not when Mabel had been so close to her ear, lips brushing against the whorl – even now she could barely concentrate as Dipper’s cyan eyes bore into hers, and she blinked hard and swayed slightly in the stool that had most certainly not been here before she’d gotten on the stage.

Dipper was frowning at her slightly, and his eyes flicked away to a point behind her – to his sister, probably, but try as Pacifica might, she couldn’t quite bring herself to glance away to check. Or move at all, actually. Her hands were curled around the edges of the stools, and she quickly found that they were there to stay, and so was the rest of her, and _oh god_ she couldn’t _move_ and she couldn’t _look away_ and _cyan was filling her vision_ and –

And then it was gone, and Dipper’s hand moved to cover the cyan glow of his tie completely, his frown deepening, and he said aloud, “Mabel, I think you will have to pick another volunteer. Ms. Northwest is looking rather pale.”

“Of course, brother dear,” Mabel said, her voice practically a purr just behind her, and Pacifica shuddered and sucked in a breath as the girl flounced off, the crowd roaring in their attempts to get her attention. Dipper, meanwhile, had padded closer and put a hand under her chin, moving her head this way and that, snapping his fingers a few times in front of her face until she focused on him.

“My apologies,” he said, voice softening, and that confused little frown was still on his face. This close, she could clearly see the birthmark on his forehead, the way his eyes were narrowed slightly in thought, the gleam of his white teeth as he gave that same small smile from before. He looked – younger, somehow. Less of the irremovable mask she’d seen from her place in the back, more of the young teenager he was supposed to be.

“We keep water backstage, should you like some peace and quiet,” he said, voice soft. Gentle, like a river over smooth stone, and reflexively her breathing began to slow. “Unless you would like to go back to your seat?”

She opened her mouth to answer. Nothing came out, and her cheeks flushed bright red as she clamped it shut and trembled. She was afraid, now, genuinely afraid, she didn’t know why but and she just wanted to be left alone, and she could swear Dipper’s eyes flared brightly for a moment before he said, his voice quiet and professional, “Backstage it is, then. Tell our manager I sent you. Off you go, quickly.”

The dismissal was not unkind, nor was it friendly, and Pacifica’s legs were definitely not under her brain’s commands when they stood up and began walking her behind the curtains. In the pandemonium in the seats, no one seemed to notice, but she could feel Dipper’s eyes on her the whole while and it was only when she was out of his field of vision that her knees started wobbling again. A small mercy: the crowd, at least, was muffled by the surprisingly thick blue curtains, and she took a breath and let it out, slowly.

There was a portly man reading a newspaper in a chair, and he noticed her the moment she took one trembling step forward, folding the paper and standing up. He was tall, big really, and he strode forward without any hesitance.

“You must be Pacifica,” he said, and she startled because how did these people _know_ these things? ( _The twins, the gems, magic isn’t real,_ her mind whispered.) “Come with me.”

And because she didn’t know what else to do, she followed.

* * *

The reason why Pacifica had been at the Tent of Telepathy at all was because she wanted to see what exactly made Gideon hate the place so much.

(And maybe a little bit because Robbie had quietly suggested it to her as he sat and read behind the cashier, and she needed something to talk to him about so the hours she worked wouldn’t be spent in awkward silence.)

She hadn’t told Gidoen she’d gone, of course, because he’d do everything to stop her and keep her “safe” or something – and she’d been surprised to see how full the place was, and how many of the people had merchandise of the fabled Gleeful twins already.

“Oh, yeah, they’re very popular around here,” the twins’ manager was telling her. Soos, she’d learned his name was, and he was chatty and amiable and, despite his size, his gracefulness and poise rivalled a ballerina’s. She never thought she would say that about someone, but then again, she never thought she’d meet a pair of supposedly telepathic twins, either. “Gravity Falls is a special place for them. This is where the whole thing got started.”

“Really?” This surprised her. The two hadn’t struck her as small-town kids.

Soos dipped his head in a nod, hands folded neatly across his lap. “They always come back here at least once a year.” His tux was immaculate; his hair, pristine. Pacifica wondered how much gel he used to get it to lay flat like that. “This is their favorite kind of crowd.”

“Their favorite kind?”

Soos gave her a strange smile, nothing like the kindness he’d shown previously. This one looked like it had been pasted on his face, lips stretched to the side by something invisible.

“Gullible,” he said, and Pacifica blinked at him, uncomprehending. “You’re the first to resist Dipper’s hypnotism, by the way.”

“Oh.”

“It’s not a good thing,” Soos said, and Pacifica slouched over, hands cupped protectively around the water in her hands. “Once you catch their interest, the twins don’t give up easily. The last person to resist their mind reading was in California, and... well, better that I don’t finish that story.”

“Oh,” Pacifica repeated, her voice several times smaller.

He seemed to consider over his words for a bit before perking up, as if suddenly aware of a transgression. “Ah, but don’t worry so much, Ms. Northwest. The twins aren’t dangerous! Just a little intimidating. Dipper wouldn’t hurt you.”

Pacifica studied Soos’s face, trying to see if he was lying, but his eyes had drifted from hers to something inside the room – and it certainly was interesting, as rooms went. Soos had explained that it was literally the guest room: the twins’ tricks had nauseated their volunteers before, and after the first few episodes of this happening, they had ensured there would be an area for guests to go back and collect themselves. Accordingly, a section of the place was devoted to a refrigerator and a few cupboards, with a variety of teas and coffees sitting next to an electric kettle on a counter. Otherwise, it was a multitude of chairs, one armchair, and one couch, which Pacifica was currently seated on, and pictures hung up all along the walls – of the twins, mostly, and all of the places they’ve had their show.

When it became clear Soos wasn’t going to speak again, Pacifica let her eyes wander along the frames. Mabel had always posed the exact same way throughout the years – one hand on her brother’s shoulder, the other on a hip, leaning some of her weight on him and smirking at the camera. Dipper, meanwhile, was standing straight-backed, hands folded behind him, shoulders neatly covered by a dark cape, expression cool and composed. There was an older man grinning behind them and then Soos off to the side, and always, always Dipper had his bowie tie and Mabel had her headband with their eerie, glowing gems.

“If you’re feeling better, you’re welcome to go,” Soos said suddenly, and Pacifica startled. A number of minutes had passed; the cup in her hands was empty. “Show’s over.”

She blinked at him a few times. When she found her voice, it was low with uncertainty. “How can you tell?”

Soos shrugged at her. She was pretty sure that was the best she was going to get.

* * *

“I do not understand.”

“Nor do I,” Mabel said, a slight frown on her face. The tent was empty, finally, and she absently reached out and waved her hand, causing the tent’s flap to seal itself shut. Her brother was leaning back on absolutely nothing at all, his gem pulsing gently at his neck as he kept himself afloat.

“I cannot tell if she was blocking me intentionally or not.”

“She isn’t from here. That must have something to do with it.” Mabel gave him a sharp smile as she suggested, “Perhaps you need to be more forceful.”

“Not like you,” Dipper said, and in his mind flashed the image of a broken-minded man, sobbing and screaming on the floor, head whipping from side to side so hard and fast his neck popped – and Mabel snorted and shook her head. Her brother had no sense of adventure, but she had to admit he was right in this particular case. Skillful, subtle telepathy had always been more of his thing.

“Maybe not,” she conceded. She continued to mull it over in the back of her mind even as she changed the subject. “There was an image of Gideon in her mind when I approached – hard to read with the mental blocks, just barely detectable. Did you see it?” Dipper nodded, and while even the thought of the boy privately excited her, she brushed it aside for the moment to go on, “He’s always been resistant – more so, since we last saw him.”

“They are related,” Dipper said, his thoughts going to _cousins_ as a first guess. Mabel felt the word more than saw it, and she opened her mouth to agree with him when Dipper straightened suddenly, turning his head to look at the side of the stage. His thoughts were hers, and so were, to an extent, his senses; she heard the footsteps through his ears and fell silent, gaze intense and boring as they waited to see who it was. Not Soos, likely not their great-uncle; was the girl still here after all this time? Had she been that unsettled to have waited that long in that guest room, or had their manager been talking at her again?

 _Dammit, Soos_ , Mabel thought, fast and hard and furious, and Dipper heard her because he let out a dry chuckle, getting to his feet from his invisible perch. And sure enough, a few moments later, Pacifica Northwest cautiously stepped onto the wood flooring of the stage.

“Ms. Northwest!” Mabel exclaimed, all false cheer, and her twin sent the blonde a small, knowing smile. Pacifica merely gazed back at him, unmoved, and Mabel took the opportunity to gently probe at her mind, see if she couldn’t find an opening, as she strode forward and took the girl’s hands in her own. Dipper was doing the same, even as she said, “We'd like to apologize for what happened earlier. We’re not sure what triggered it.”

“It’s okay,” Pacifica said, finally flicking her eyes over to her, and her mind was completely closed off now, not a single bit of information could be read at all unlike before. Mabel felt along her mental link with Dipper to transmit this information; her brother soon replied that he had found the same thing.

“Do you require anything else?” Dipper inquired. Both he and Mabel were watching her every move without giving away that they were, and so Mabel had absolutely no warning before her brother offered offhandedly, “I would be happy to escort you home.”

Mabel felt her eyes widen fractionally before she asked him _what the fuck are you doing_ , to which his mind opened its gates a little wider to her and she set to flipping through the vague images he was showing her – ones that basically translated to _see where she lives, confirm suspicions, investigate later_. His logic was good enough for her, and she didn’t miss a beat as she chimed, “Excellent idea, brother!”

“That’s really not necessary,” Pacifica said, and she wasn’t scared at all. No reason to be ( _yet_ ), but, still; if she was related to Gideon, who suspected them to hell and back, it was surprising. Dipper’s line of reasoning, not hers, and Mabel shot the girl a bright and also completely fake smile, squeezing her hands once before Pacifica pulled away and she let go.

“Nonsense! It’s the least we can do for you, Ms. Northwest.”

“It would be beneficial for us, as well,” Dipper added, this time adding a layer of magic to his words, his gem pulsating quietly under his fingers as he reached up to cover it. Pacifica’s eyes flicked down to it; she noticed, Mabel was sure, but was too polite to comment on it. “If there are any other side-effects from the show, it would help us to know about it so that we may help a future guest more promptly.”

Neither twin had to read her mind to know Pacifica was teetering on refusing. Mabel reached up to brush a lock of hair behind her ear, sending her own burst of power to bolster Dipper’s, her brother taking control of the magic and directing it where it needed to be – and finally Pacifica nodded, slowly, and said, “Well, if you insist.”

“We do,” Mabel said, at the exact same time as Dipper did, and finally there was a flash of _something_ in Pacifica’s eyes; not fear, perhaps, but a sudden flare of anxiety and uncertainty, and that was much better than before. Dipper sent along the feeling of exasperated fondness at Mabel’s surge of pride, and then the girl added, “I trust you’ll keep her safe, brother dear.”

“Naturally, sister dearest,” Dipper said, flipping his cape over his shoulder before offering Pacifica his arm. She took it with no small degree of nervousness, and Mabel had to resist the urge to cackle at Dipper’s flare of disdain and resignation and interest, all at once. “Do check on Will for me, will you?”

“I’m not incompetent,” Mabel answered. Her brother gave her an affection grin before turning, and she watched him lead Pacifica out of the tent, waiting only until the flap had closed behind them before letting a cruel smirk curl her lip.

This was only the beginning, and Pacifica clearly had no idea what she was getting into.

* * *

“Do you normally do this?”

Dipper glanced at Pacifica from the corner of his eye. They’d hardly gone five steps from the tent before she’d asked her question; surprising, really. He let that thought stew in his mind for a few moments before passing it along to Mabel.

“Only for extreme cases,” Dipper answered presently. Pacifica’s silence was fraught with unasked questions, and he idly attempted to swipe through her mind and pick up what she was thinking. He found a heartbeat later that he could read her most basic stream of consciousness now, which was likely why Mabel had been able to pick up her name earlier in the tent and why neither twin had suspected anything out of place. Accordingly, he listened to one line of inquiry and answered without her voicing it. “And no, I do not discriminate – the male gender typically finds me as interesting as the female one, as do those who do not fit the binary.”

If Pacifica was surprised by his foresight, she didn’t show it. Instead, she gestured to her hand, currently nestled in his elbow, and said, “You do this for everyone?”

“Is that surprising?”

“Kind of, yeah,” Pacifica said, and his eyebrows raised slightly. It was interesting, fascinating really, that she showed no qualms or fear about him at all. Typically, his or Mabel’s appearance rendered teenagers into incoherent piles of mush. (Not literally, at least in almost all occurrences.) “Just glad to know I’m not a special case.”

“Who is to say you are not?” Dipper said before he could really stop to think about it, and Mabel was still close enough to laugh at him, a faint chime in the back of his head. He sent her a wry feeling in return. Pacifica had turned beet red, meanwhile, and Dipper let out a light chuckle to let her know that yes, he’d noticed.

“I don’t see why,” the girl muttered, looking down at her terribly neon sneakers.

“If it needs explaining, then I’ve underestimated you,” Dipper answered, letting her pull from that what she would.

“Flattering,” she said with nary a pause. He resisted the urge to smile; not bad, she was much more adventurous once you pulled her out of her shell. “Are you waiting for me to guess?”

“No. But by all means, impress me.”

She had the audacity to poke his side with a finger, with the hand in his elbow no less. He doesn’t react beyond a perfunctory wince, as per his body’s hardwired instinct, but the smile he had been keeping under wraps appeared unwittingly on his lips – and then she said, “Smartass,” right to his face, loud enough that a passerby across the street let out a shocked noise and stared, jaws agape.

“Careful, Ms. Northwest,” he said, far more amused than he should be, “We would not want the entire town against you, would we?”

“I wasn’t aware Gravity Falls’ was under your thumb,” Pacifica answered and oh, this poor, foolish, naïve girl. “Also, ‘we’?”

“I am sure you would call it a Freudian slip,” Dipper replied.

“I was going to say slip of the tongue, but sure, that works.”

How was this the same person he’d sent backstage? She was flirting with him now - granted, not very well, but there it was - and it would be nothing short of outrageous if he wasn’t enjoying it so much. “Bold, are we?”

“Only around phonies,” Pacifica said, and Dipper quickly hid his condescension behind a smile. It was better of her to think of their magic in that fashion, though it would likely not remain that way for long and that did not explain how easily she blocked both him and Mabel out of her mind. He would have to talk to Will about it later, he supposed.

“You wound me.”

“That’s the goal, yeah. Gideon hates your guts. Well, yours, mostly. He’s slightly more forgiving to Mabel.”

“A fact she will be delighted to learn.”

“That he can’t even try to tolerate her?”

“Do not be dense; it is unbecoming.” Pacifica huffed at him, as he went on, “My sister is relentless, my dear. Your cousin knows this already.”

Her eyes narrowed. “How did you know we were cousins?”

“I can only wonder, since I am, apparently, a phony.” It’d been a guess. He was gratified to see that it was a correct one, and Pacifica tugged him down another street. Now that he knew where they were going for certain, as he knew very well where Gideon lived, he didn’t need guidance, but he let her pull him along anyway.

“Shut up. And I’m not ‘your dear’.”

“My apologies. I’ll perish the thought.”

“You better.”

“Not that you could ever know,” Dipper pointed out, and she scoffed but conceded the point.

* * *

Pacifica had a problem.

His laugh, quiet and smooth as silk and as rare as a blue moon, was the problem.

 _He_ was the problem, him with the dumb cape and startling cyan eyes. It was all him.

The problem was that Dipper Gleeful was infuriating, but he was also charming as hell, and Pacifica’s seventeen-year-old brain desperately enjoyed the witty repartee, the constant scrambling for a good comeback, the way he flirted with her effortlessly and the problem was that _Gideon had warned her about this_ , and she was falling right for the trap. Worse, she didn’t even want to climb out, and she’d never seen Dipper so expressive as they walked up the dirt road and the Mystery Shack pulled into view.

He stopped a bit short of coming totally into view, and when his opposite hand reached up to gently detach hers from his arm, his fingers were warm. “I think I will stop here,” he told her, a hint of a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Your family, as you said, is not fond of me.”

“It’s probably for the best,” she agreed, but she didn’t move right away. He didn’t either, she noticed, and he was watching her with his head slightly tilted, expression thoughtful. She so desperately wanted to trace the constellation on his forehead and she had no idea why and she _really_ shouldn’t be thinking about this if Dipper actually could read her mind. Even if he was a phony. “Thanks for, um. Escorting me.”

“My pleasure,” he said, and it sounded perfunctory until he added a quieter, “Truly,” at the end, and Pacifica felt her heart beat once, hard, and thought _oh no_. His eyes glittered with amusement as he said, “It was lovely getting to know you, Ms. Northwest. Please, do drop by the Tent another time.”

“Yeah, uh, of course,” she said, stammered really, and she hadn’t even noticed that his fingers were still intertwined with hers until he raised them to his lips. They were cool across the back of her hand, and then he lowered it, let go, and neatly pivoted on his heel. His cape flipped effortlessly with the motion, and she remained shock-still, cheeks burning so hot it hurt, until he turned the corner –

And he met her eyes and winked before he was out of sight and _oh my god, this was the worst, Gideon was going to kill her_.

* * *

“Oh-ho,” Mabel said when Dipper finally returned to the Manor. Not that he could hear her, audibly at least; she was ensconced in her room, huddled under two comforters, while he was just closing the front hall’s doors behind him. His thoughts, however, entangled themselves with hers, wittingly or no, and she was treated to a variety of feelings, sights, sounds, images as he moved through the building. She chuckled and said, “I’m surprised, brother dear. It’s not often one captures your interest so intently.”

 _You mock me, but one can hardly forget about your precious Gideon_.

 _Shut up_ , she responded, grinning, and she could feel him shake his head as he tapped his way up the stairs, a bit of magic lightening his step until he could bound easily upwards. She leaned back as Dipper narrowed the mental connection between them, allowing them both a bit more privacy, and she didn’t have to wait long until he was striding into their shared room, steps precise and fluid on the carpeted flooring.

“Ah, Will,” he said, noticing the little blue demon hovering by her shoulder. Per usual, the demon was almost bawling, and unlike her, Dipper was rather good friends with him, so Will floated over without reserve. “I hope you did not hurt him, sister dear?”

“Only a little,” she said with a predator’s smile, daring Will to say a word. He didn’t, just gulped loudly enough to show that something had indeed happened, and Dipper narrowed his eyes at her.

“Mabel...”

“Fine,” she relented, because otherwise Dipper would never shut up about it and tell her what she wanted to know about Pacifica Northwest. “I didn’t have enough blood for the feeding, so I had to find another person. I had Will with me when I was... busy.”

“You know he hates that.”

“Precisely,” she said without dropping her grin.

“Mabel.”

“Oh my god, _fine_. I’m sorry, Will. There, happy?”

“N-n-not really,” Will answered in a small voice, sniffing once as he seated himself comfortably on Dipper’s shoulder, and her brother actually gave the thing an absentminded pat before floating himself at the foot of her bed, much like he had done in the tent.

“Whatever,” Mabel said presently, not bothered in the slightest. If Dipper had been truly angry at her, she would’ve known and acted accordingly, but for the moment she merely leaned forward, freeing herself from her mess of comforters as she put her elbows on her knees. “Tell me everything.”

Dipper rolled his eyes. That was all the warning she got before he mentally nudged his protective barriers away and allowing his thoughts to pour into her mind, much like the bursting water behind a dam. It was enough that she physically reeled, letting out a startled gasp as sounds and sights and smells inundated hers, warm hands and nervous motions, sharper words that meant softer things, bright clothes and brighter eyes, staring passerby and a few more security deposit codes he’d fished out of someone walking past him and her –

“We’ve underestimated her, it seems,” she managed after a few moments of mentally sorting through the pieces. Dipper had thankfully closed the barriers again, just flooding her with the relevant information and leaving his present stream of consciousness away from her, and given the way Will was blinking his single eye, it was likely he had been privy to the data just as she had.

“For the moment. It will not happen again, I expect.”

“She can h-hold her own in a conversation pretty well,” Will noted, and now his eye was just closed, probably so he could focus. Mabel made a noise of agreement. “And her mental shields aren’t... completely impassable?”

“I can vaguely read her mind,” Dipper confirmed.

“You invited her back?” Mabel said, once the information was made relevant in her brain, and she clucked her tongue, impressed. “My, she’s made quite the impression on you.”

“One word,” Dipper said, “Gid – ”

“Not teasing,” Mabel said indignantly, though she quickly added, “A lot,” when Dipper treated her to an even look. “You must agree that it’s unusual, brother.”

“Certainly,” he said, because he knew just as well as her that that was true; he’d never taken an active interest in another person beside his immediate family for as long as he’d been alive. “It is also fortunate she is close to Gideon. Perhaps she will be willing to show us the journal.”

“Is that optimism I hear?” Mabel said, raising an eyebrow.

“Wistfulness, I think,” Dipper answered with a shake of his head. “Gideon has told her everything he knows about us, which is surprisingly little. Unless she was holding back, which I do not think she was.”

“Ah, Dipper, you charmer,” Mabel said with a laugh, shoving at him with her magic and causing him to jerk in the air, enough that he yelped and Will had to scrabble for a handhold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because Bill and Dipper in Gravity Falls are bitter enemies, it only makes sense that in Reverse Falls, Will and Dipper are pretty much besties. Kinda. As much as a dream demon and a psychic kid can be besties.


	2. rule number one: gleefuls are always excellent hosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Gleeful twins continue to be creepy - but then, Pacifica reasons, that's nothing new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have received some very nice compliments from people and I really appreciate them! Especially since over 20k of this was written during finals time, i.e. stress-writing, and therefore is of questionable quality. Thank you very much!
> 
> No warnings this time around.

“You _what_ with _who_ after _what_?”

“I walked home with Dipper after I went to the show,” Pacifica said patiently, and then a little more pointedly, “And there’s not a scratch on me, so.”

“Pacifica, he could’ve hurt you!”

“He didn’t. I’m fine.”

“He read your mind! Without your permission!” Gideon’s accent was coming on very strongly now.

“I’ll talk to him about it.”

“You are _not_ going to do that. No. Absolutely not.”

“Gideon,” Pacifica said, now a bit exasperated, “What’s the worst they could do?”

“Look, you weren’t here last summer,” Gideon said urgently, “You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. _I do_. For the love of anything, please listen to me when I say you really, really don’t want to know.”

She stared at him. He stared back, this portly cousin of hers who was a bit younger, who clutched a weird journal under his arm like it was his lifeline, who wore stupid hats and dorky vests and dumb shorts – and she saw the actual, true fear in his eyes, the concern written all over his face, and she relented. Let out a sigh, in fact, and leaned back against the rickety kitchen chair.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay, G. I’ll leave well enough alone.”

Her phone buzzed.

“Thank you, Paz,” Gideon said, a smile breaking his face like dawn over the horizon, and he reached up to swipe white hair over his ear as she smiled back, albeit weakly. She took out her phone.

_I’ll admit it: I was expecting more. Be gentle to my brother when you let him down. - M_

She felt more than a little invaded, a prickling of unease raising the hairs of her neck, and she also felt a bit nauseous, and she couldn’t wipe the image of cyan filling her vision. Dipper was charming, yes, and he was funny, and he was quick-witted and pretty and she really wanted to touch his forehead, but underneath that was... she didn’t even know. Did she want to know, if Mabel could somehow time her text so exactly that –

Her breath shortened out and her hands began to shake. “Paz?” Gideon asked, and he’d placed the book flat on the table and was leaning over as best as his short stature could allow, but she couldn’t let him see this, he would – he would do something stupid, so she gave out a shaky laugh and put the phone away.

“It’s nothing,” she said, her voice sounding far more assertive than she felt. Her insides squirmed like jelly. “Don’t worry about it.”

Her phone buzzed again.

“If you say so,” Gideon said, in a tone that said he was quite sure she didn’t say so, but he wouldn’t push. He watched her as she got to her feet and stretched her hands above her head, glancing outside; it was dark out. Evening, she would wager, though probably it was later than she thought.

“I’m gonna turn in,” she said.

“Are we still on for the barf fairy hunt tomorrow?” he asked, expression hopeful, eyes concerned. He was a good kid, really, if a bit paranoid and, well, weird.

“Duh,” Pacifica said, even though she was pretty sure that the journal he carried around was incredibly stupid and that barf fairies were definitely not a thing. “See you in the morning.”

“Good night.”

She smiled, he smiled back, and then she turned and began to walk away. She flipped her phone open again as she went up the creaky old stairs leading up to the attic.

_We have a show tomorrow at 11. If you’re half as clever as my brother thinks you are, you’ll be there._

No signature this time, not that Pacifica needed it. She entered the number under _MABEL GLEEFUL_ and promptly turned the device off immediately afterwards, still feeling a little nauseous and unsettled. Her insides wouldn’t stop twisting in on themselves, and all she could think about what cyan eyes and dangerously small smiles, and as she brushed her teeth and collapsed into bed, she knew she wouldn’t be getting much sleep.

* * *

Dipper laughed, reclining back on absolutely nothing at all, and said incredulously, “You did _not_.”

“I _did_ ,” Mabel said with a ferocious smile, her legs folded underneath her in the air, and Dipper laughed even harder. “No way she won’t show up now, brother. You can thank me later, even if getting her phone number was such a hassle.”

“I would rather thank you now,” he replied, nudging her shoulder with his. “I had no idea you could find her over such a long distance to time it so perfectly.”

“Silly, I didn’t read _her_ ,” Mabel said, “I read Gideon.” A face and mind she was very familiar with, one she could find in a snap without an iota of effort.

“Even though he has put up all of those mental blocks?”

“Her answer was fresh in his mind, right at the surface,” Mabel said with a smirk, tapping her forehead with an index finger. Her nail polish could use some refreshing, something Dipper told her without speaking, and she quickly put both hands in front of her to peruse the damage and agreed with a nod. “The timing _was_ perfect, truly. I’m fairly certain she’ll be quite unsettled when she gets here.”

Here, of course, meant the Tent of Telepathy. The show opened in ten minutes or so, and already wild chatter could be heard from outside, though they would have to turn away quite a few people due to the relatively small size of the tent. People who missed the show yesterday would be here today, as well as people who wanted to watch it for a second time. Sometimes Dipper could only wonder about how stupid the citizens of Gravity Falls were.

“I do not suppose Gideon came with her?” Dipper asked.

Mabel snorted. “He probably has no idea she’s here.”

“Hm. Pity. Though I suppose that makes my job easier.”

“What, charming her? Into doing what, exactly, beyond catering to your own interest in her?”

“I have little idea. Perhaps into explaining why her mind is so fortified? Or perhaps she might let us look at the third Journal, however briefly?” Dipper shrugged.

“Ultimately, that sounds as though marginal cost will outweigh marginal benefit, brother dear.”

“The same could be said about Gideon, sister dearest.”

She made vaguely annoyed sound, though her smile was wide and leering. “You and Will will never let that go.”

“It _is_ pretty f-funny,” Will said from absolutely nowhere, phasing through the stage’s left curtain without warning. He exchanged a cordial nod with Dipper before looking over at his twin. “And h-he’s here. Arguing with Soos in the back.”

“He _is_?” Mabel’s excitement was palpable as she bounced out of her invisible chair, feet landing silently on the wooden floor.

“Oh no,” Dipper intoned, allowing his feet to touch down as well as he tried not to let his amusement show on his face, though he knew she could feel it at the edges of her mind, chiding and warm. Mabel pushed at him with her magic and he barely kept from stumbling.

“I’m surprised you didn’t, um, sense him,” Will said, taking his usual perch on Dipper’s shoulder. Mabel was too busy finger-combing her hair to snap back a retort, and the dream demon said to Dipper, “You probably w-won’t be able to talk to the girl without him, um, trying to interrupt.”

“That is what Mabel is for,” Dipper said with a chuckle, before waving a hand and saying, “Apologies, Will, but the show starts very soon.”

“O-oh! I’m sorry.”

“It is quite all right. But go quickly, before you are seen.”

“I still have no idea why you’re so nice to that thing,” Mabel said, before Will had even begun to move. The demon whimpered in complaint but disappeared backstage as Mabel went on, “He’s bound to me indefinitely and he bolsters our magic for whatever we want, but instead you’re just – nice to him. Like. What’s the point?”

Dipper shrugged. “A little kindness never hurt anyone.” His eyes glinted. “Much.”

Mabel’s laugh was sharp and cold. “I see where your loyalties lie.”

“With you, sister dear, as always.” Mabel sent the same feelings along to him, and they shared a warm smile, though it was short-lived as Dipper mused, “The show is about to begin.”

Once Mabel was next to him, they quickly oriented themselves so they stood identically – feet shoulder-width apart, hands folded neatly behind their back, standing as though on an invisible line – before using a burst of magic to flip the tent’s flap open.

* * *

Will had not lied to her. Gideon was there, and Mabel was so excited, but she contained herself when Dipper sent a sharp reminder not to completely and utterly embarrass herself on stage. Thus the show went on without incident, even though both of the twins admitted to each other that they looked towards the back of the tent almost constantly.

They weren’t stupid enough to ask Gideon or Pacifica to be a volunteer. Playing it safe paid off in a lot of ways, at least Dipper told her so and she listened, and soon the show was over, people were chattering as they stayed behind to pick up merchandise and others came up to ask for autographs and questions, and Dipper waved her off to deal with a particularly obnoxious crowd of tween boys so she could go talk to Gideon. And Pacifica, she guessed, but that was more Dipper’s thing.

Gideon was expecting her as she sauntered over, it was clear from the way his eyes were darting back and forth, back and forth, how he stood cautiously but ready to bolt at a second’s notice. Pacifica was a lot calmer next to him, regarding the calamity ahead of them without much change in expression, and Mabel managed to surprise both of them as she draped herself along Gideon’s shoulders. He whispered a curse under his breath as she sang, “Hellooooo, Gideon.”

“Mabel, get off of me,” he said, and she laughed lightly but pulled away. She didn’t have much respect for his boundaries to begin with, but there was enough knowledge from previous years to know he’d get pissy if she hung on for too long.

“No need to be so cold,” she answered, linking an arm through his. She was taller than him, still, by at least six inches, and he looked clearly uncomfortable in her grip. She loved every second of this, and Dipper sent her an irritated request to close off her mind from his soon afterwards, to which she acquiesced. “I haven’t seen you since last summer, Pines. How’ve you been?”

“Better without you around,” Gideon muttered. Her smile, if anything, sharpened, and Pacifica looked on nervously, having an inward mental battle of whether she should interrupt or not that she had no idea Mabel was partially privy to.

“I’m sure it was,” Mabel said presently. “As they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder, hm?”

He made a disgusted sound. “Stop touching me.”

“Oh, of course! But I insist you stay a little longer, after the crowd has cleared up.” She released him, but any steps he might have taken to the exit were stopped by the soft flare of the gem studded on her headband. Pacifica was staring right at the cyan glow, but she looked away when Mabel shot her a look. “Now, now, no need to be so shy. Let’s go! And you as well, Pacifica.”

“M-me?”

“No, the other girl standing right behind you with the same name – ” and then Mabel almost lost her composure when Pacifica looked over her shoulder, briefly confused – “Of course _you_ , Ms. Northwest. Come along, I’m sure Dipper would like to talk to you.”

“No,” Gideon said firmly, “He stays away from her.”

“You come in our tent and expect to be in control?” Mabel said with a small smile. Gideon stared back at her, defiant, and she clucked her tongue. “You’ve gotten complacent, I see. Well, I do like my boys stubborn.”

“That is disgusting,” Gideon said as he unwillingly began to follow her back to the stage, magic forcing his legs’ movements. Unlike Dipper, Mabel’s magic was undetectable, at least in the telekinetic regard, and Pacifica followed behind uncertainly. “You’re disgusting. And Dipper stays _away from her_.”

Dipper, having broken free of the Satanic circle of tweens, intoned, “Is that so?”

 _Perfect timing_ , Mabel thought, and then remembered a moment later that her mind was currently disconnected from her brother’s, so she opened up the channel again and repeated the thought. Her brother’s only acknowledgment of the comment was the tiny quirk to his lip, disappearing as quickly as it had come.

Her brother presently cocked an eyebrow at their guests. “Perhaps we should leave that up to Ms. Northwest, hm?”

“I, uh,” Pacifica stammered, and then she looked up, met Dipper’s eyes, and Mabel could physically see the way she pulled herself together, how the smile played onto her mouth. No wonder Dipper thought the world of her; few had the right amounts of bravado and actual bravery to address Dipper as not only a regular person but as an equal. “I’m okay with it.”

“ _Pacifica_ ,” Gidoen hissed, horrified.

His cousin ignored him in favor of staring down Dipper, and Mabel grinned happily, leaning down to purr in the boy’s ear, “Looks like you’re with me, darling.”

Gideon let out a sound that was a mix between a yelp and a whimper as Dipper took Pacifica’s hand and brought it to his lips, staring at Gideon all the while, and then her brother twisted so the girl’s fingers rested atop his fist as he escorted her backstage. It would’ve been ridiculous if it wasn’t Dipper: a cape-clad boy leading a girl dressed in neon like they were nobility. Mabel was pleased regardless, and the crowd was finally clearing out as Soos made an appearance and began ushering people out the tent.

“Come along, Gideon,” she said, and the boy let out a muffled groan of both annoyance and despair as he followed her, magic glowing around his feet, to the side of the stage opposite Dipper and Pacifica had gone.

* * *

“So,” Dipper said, arms crossed, cup of tea with an accompanying saucer floating a bit left to his shoulder. Pacifica was trying really, really hard not to stare. Gideon had told her the Gleeful twins actually had magic, and he’d made her promise to go on a barf fairy hunt yesterday, and there’d been that weird dreams she’d been having, and she was beginning to believe her cousin wasn’t as delusional as she had originally thought. “I must admit I am surprised you actually returned.”

“Can’t resist a challenge,” Pacifica quipped without thinking.

His laugh, while light, was unfairly pretty like the rest of him. “You may speak frankly, Ms. Northwest. I know my dear sister had a hand in your presence today.”

“Um,” and damn it, of course the twins told each other everything. Dipper had probably known about Mabel’s texts as they happened. “Yeah, about that. How did she get my number?”

“Mm. I wonder.”

“Dipper,” she said, this time layering a bit of warning in her tone, and he blinked at her and oh, maybe she shouldn’t have used his first name? Too late now.

“No, quite honestly, I do not know,” he said after a moment, raising both hands in a placating manner. He looked poised and confident even as he leaned back in his armchair; Pacifica could only wonder at what she looked like in comparison, huddled on one corner of the couch with a bottle of water resting on the floor at her feet. “She did not tell me about what occurred until this morning, as a matter of fact.”

Well, that was one question answered. “What, none of that ‘I read your mind’ bullcrap?”

He stared at her, and she could just see the touch of impatience in his eyes. “You are watching me float a cup of tea in front of your face; you have watched my sister force your cousin to walk; and yet you still insist that everything we do is an expensive and meticulous act.”

“Okay, what am I thinking about right now?” she asked, neatly evading his words.

“Constellations,” he answered primly. “And that you wish to trace them.”

Oh.

Oh, _no_.

The smile he gave her was nothing short of flirty, and she felt her face heat up, starting at the back of her neck. Oh god, she hadn’t been thinking about – she had _not_ been thinking about touching his forehead, well, maybe only a little bit, and she found herself unable to muster a response. She’d walked right into that one, too, and she hated herself a little for it.

“Well, you are not the first, I am afraid,” Dipper said presently. “I only wonder at what your mindscape looks like. You have remarkably advanced defenses.”

“D-defenses,” she repeated, still a little embarrassed and now mostly confused, though she was grateful for then sudden subject change. “I. What? But you just read my mind!” _Kind of_ , she told herself, and Dipper’s mouth lifted in a smirk.

“I merely looked at what was at the forefront of your brain – your stream of consciousness, if you will. What you are thinking at this very moment.” He shrugged. “Typically, I can easily reach deeper, draw out whatever I wish to know. But not for you.” His eyes were heavy on hers as he sipped at his tea. “You, Ms. Northwest, have protective measures in place.”

“Uh – ” hold on a second, the thought just occurred to her, and she blurted, “Wait, have you been reading my mind this _whole_ time we’ve been talking?”

Dipper raised an eyebrow at her. “That would be incredibly rude.” He paused briefly. “My sister has no qualms about that, of course, but then, we have always been very different.”

“Is that bad?”

“Hm. Perhaps in some ways.” He let out a sudden huff of laughter, and at Pacifica’s look he explained, “She wishes me to tell you that distracting me from the subject at hand is not appreciated. Also, Gideon says hello, along with a few garbled words I could not quite pick up.”

Okay, so apparently the twins had a mental link between them. Pacifica opened her mouth to ask about it, then closed it again because maybe she was drawing some very weird conclusions, then opened and shut it again because no, she wasn’t going to ask, no, and then  _wait, what was that about Gideon?_ so she opened it one last time and said, “What?”

“I can explain later, should you wish it,” Dipper said, as if it was totally fine to ask a girl he met yesterday to... go on a date or something? Pacifica swallowed, feeling her previously-absent nerves bubble in her chest. She was probably overreacting. “But Mabel does have a point. Do you have any idea why your mental barriers are so strong?”

“Is _that_ why you’re interested in me?”

“It was, at first,” Dipper said, and Pacifica stared at him, long and hard. He stared back, even and unblinking, before tilting his head. His tea drifted a few feet away to settle on the counter next to the electric kettle. “You are, of course, under no obligation to stay, should you feel threatened or disrespected.”

She couldn’t tell if he was being gentlemanly because it was genuine or because he was manipulating her, but for the moment she pinned it on the latter, wrapping caution around her like a cloak as she brought her knees up and sat back against the couch’s pliant, leather cushions.

“Well,” she said, and it sounded a bit too much like a confession for her liking, “I had no idea my mental barriers were so strong until you mentioned it just now.”

* * *

Pacifica suspected him of duplicity, even if she didn’t say as much out loud. This much Dipper could easily glean from her motions, careful and sure but still hesitant in some ways, and she completely withdrew into herself when Mabel swept into the guest room with untimely timeliness, dragging an unwilling Gideon along with her.

“Sister,” he said with a nod. He eyed Gideon with veiled distaste. “Gideon.”

“Gleeful,” Gideon answered, spat out really.

“Hey, G,” Pacifica said, patting the spot next to her, and her portly cousin made an irritated motion with his hand; ah, Mabel was still holding him back, and Dipper sent a quick reminder to his sister as such, to which she merely laughed and released her magical grip on the boy. “Hi, um, Mabel.”

“Hello, Ms. Northwest,” Mabel said, and she then proceeded to drape herself across Dipper’s lap, lying sideways on the armchair as his hand rose to absently run his fingers through her hair. “Have a good talk with my brother?”

“Something like that,” Pacifica said, glancing at him. Dipper met her eyes and gave her a tiny smile, to which she looked away almost immediately, flushing, to Gideon. “Are you all right, cuz?”

“No,” the boy said, glare baleful as he stared Mabel down, who winked and gave him a wave. Then his gaze shifted to Dipper, and at the narrowed eyes Dipper raised a graceful eyebrow as Gideon snapped, “What did you do to Pacifica?”

“There is no reason to suspect me of having _done_ anything,” Dipper said, even though that was blatantly untrue and Gideon knew it, and just for shits and giggles he added, “Baseless accusations are rather tiring, I should think.”

“You have weird demon magic,” Gideon snarled, taking the bait. Pacifica glanced from him to the twins, eyes wide in surprise, as her cousin went on, “And you’re both nuts, so clearly something is happening and I want to know what it is.”

“Demon magic?” Pacifica asked, at the same time Mabel said, “Gideon, you really need to figure out how and where to ask those kinds of questions if you want answers,” at the same time Dipper said, “Your accent has not improved over the months, I see.”

Gideon made a soundless noise of frustration and addressed his cousin directly instead of either twin. “Yes, _demon_. I’ve only met him once, last summer, and he’s the reason why _they_ are all magic-y and crap.” Which was wrong, but Dipper and Mabel didn’t need to exchange glances to know to keep that information quiet.

“What?” Pacifica said, sounding completely and utterly lost.

“There is no need to be rude,” Dipper replied to Gideon, even though Will wasn’t there; it was more on principle than anything else. “He is a good friend.”

“To you, maybe,” Mabel snarked, twisting her head so Dipper was smoothing out the soft curls by her ear.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Pacifica said, “Is this the little blue floating triangle with one eye that’s always on the verge of crying?”

All three heads swiveled to look at her, eyes in varying degrees of wideness. She glanced at each of them in turn, looking increasingly perturbed. After a few moments, she cautiously ventured, “What?” and Mabel started laughing as Gideon put his head in his hands.

Dipper placed an index finger to his temple and reached out mentally, feeling along the general curves of his own mindscape until chancing upon him – and soon he found himself whispering, _Will, would you come here, please?_ He didn’t get a response, but not long after Will phased in through the wall, hands clenching and unclenching in front of him, taking a perch on Dipper’s head when he noted that Mabel’s hand was playing with the clasp of Dipper’s cape and therefore within range of hitting him.

“Oh, hey, Will!” Pacifica said, smiling.

“P-P-Pacifica!” the demon squeaked back, sounding at least vaguely happy, and then, “Oh _no_ ,” and then he predictably burst into tears and he sobbed, “Why did you come here?”

Dipper knew with a sigh that he would have to wash his hair when he and Mabel returned to the Manor.

* * *

“What do you mean, why did I come here?”

“It’s n-n-not safe – ” here Will’s eyes darted down to Dipper’s impassive face, not that her brother could see, then to hers, to which Mabel grinned back widely and Will snapped upright again. “U-um.”

“No, no,” Mabel said, moving her hands away from the clasp of Dipper’s cape and moving upward to stroke her fingers along one of the demon’s side. Will shuddered away from her touch, fear in every jerky motion as she grinned. “Please, go on, Will.”

“I – I’d rather not,” Will whispered.

Mabel waited for her brother to reprimand her – to say something along the lines of _be nice_ , or something like that, as he always did – but instead his eyes flicked down to meet hers, his mind carefully shielded from Will’s view, and he said, _Go ahead. I am curious to see what he will say._

Mabel strained a bit further to continue petting the dream demon, though it was clear she’d have to sit up straight soon if she wanted to reach him as he moved away. “Aww, Will, you know I wouldn’t hurt you. _Much_ ,” she added in a whisper, and the demon shuddered.

“Leave him alone,” Pacifica said, and she sounded a lot braver than she looked when Mabel cast a cursory glance in the girl’s direction.

“Paz, I think now’s a good time to leave,” Gideon said in a low voice.

“Oh, no, I’d much rather you stay,” Mabel said, waving a hand. The door to the room was already shut, but the click of the lock resounded like a gunshot. “You’ve only just arrived.”

“It’s been almost a half-hour,” Gideon snapped.

“Far too short,” Mabel admonished, and she sat up and readjusted her perch on Dipper’s lap. He was bony and it was a little uncomfortable, but now she could reach up high enough to pluck Will from his position on Dipper’s head and bring him down to her face. “Now go on, Will. You were saying?”

Will swallowed, chanced a glance at Dipper’s face. Her brother’s expression was unreadable, cyan eyes flat and empty, eerily still as both arms rested on the sides of the armchair and he locked on to something in the distance. It wasn’t clear what he was doing, but Mabel wasn’t concerned; he was paying attention, even if it didn’t seem like it at first.

“I-I was just saying it’s, u-um, not safe,” he stuttered, as he always did when Mabel handled him. He was much more sure of himself around Dipper, and the “good cop, bad cop” routine had worked out well for them so far. “Th-that’s all.”

Mabel let out a thoughtful hum and turned to Pacifica. “And where did you meet our delightful blue friend?”

“Uh, in... the woods,” Pacifica said, and Dipper’s mind immediately flashed out _half-truth_ , something Mabel acknowledged with an imperceptible nod. “I was just walking around and I heard him crying, so I went to look.”

Dipper confirmed that that part, at least, was true, and Mabel leaned forward and smiled, all teeth and no mirth. “In the woods, Ms. Northwest?”

Pacifica clearly knew that Mabel knew she was lying, and the blonde stared at her, uneasiness flickering in her eyes. “Uh, yeah. Relatively speaking.”

“In the woods, yes,” Dipper said, and Pacifica snapped her face towards him. Her expression was a mix between annoyed and furious Dipper went on, eyes slightly narrowed, “She fell asleep. Will found her in the mindscape. They talked about...”

He trailed off, and communicated to Mabel that Pacifica had blocked him out from seeing anything else. Mabel hadn’t even begun to voice the suggestion of busting their way through before Dipper shot it down, and Mabel laughed lightly.

“Don’t _do_ that,” Pacifica snapped, her hands clenched into fists on her lap. Beside her, Gideon looked like a cat about to pounce.

“My apologies,” Dipper said, perfunctory but somehow warm enough to be sincere, and Pacifica blinked at him, startled. So did Gideon.

“How curious,” Mabel said, picking up where Dipper had left off. Will was still cradled in her hands, but he had begun to whimper when she’d started pulling at his legs some time ago. “ _What_ did you talk about, I wonder?”

“Don’t hurt him!”

“He’s fine,” Mabel said dismissively to Pacifica, leaning forward so her nose was almost touching Will’s face. “Tell me, Willy dear; did you speak about anything interesting?”

“J-j-just things!” Will squeaked out, shaking terribly. Tears splashed wetly into her palms, and Dipper let out a huff of annoyance when she wiped a hand on the armchair. “About the t-town a-a-and me!”

 _Society of the Blind Eye?_ Mabel thought, eyes narrowed.

“No!” Will answered vehemently.

_The bodies?_

“N-no!”

“He just told me about what his life is like and stuff,” Pacifica interjected, apparently not noticing Will as he frantically waved his hands to shush her. Mabel quickly took hold of his tiny arms and scowled when the dream demon began kicking his legs around instead. “What he does on a day-to-day basis, you know.”

“Oh, no,” Mabel said, grinning widely, “I don’t, as a matter of fact.”

“He hates you,” Pacifica clarified, staring at her and ignoring Will’s muffled shriek of despair. Mabel felt her grin twist into something else, something worse if Pacifica’s expression was anything to go by, and resisted the urge to laugh.

“How very insightful,” Dipper said wryly, finally taking pity on the demon and plucking him out of Mabel’s hands. Will immediately went up to float out of reach, sobbing uncontrollably as he clung to a curl of Dipper’s hair. “Mabel, perhaps we should let them go? I imagine we have taken up enough of their time.”

 _Oooh, I know, I’ll take Gideon out to lunch!_ Mabel thought as she hopped off of Dipper’s lap, and her brother chuckled once as she brushed imaginary dust off of her legs. Pacifica stood up as well; Gideon, of course, remained rooted to the spot. “I’ll show you out,” Mabel told them.

“I think that, um,” Pacifica said, and then wavered.

“I’m sure you can stick around and talk to Dipper some more,” Mabel assured her with a grin, ignoring her brother’s immediate stab of enthusiasm, brief as a breeze, and Pacifica’s face reddened again.

“Are you _serious_ , Paz?”

“Not your business, G. I’ll be back in time for the search thing.”

“And we’re going out to lunch,” Mabel declared. Gideon let out a stream of steady, soft curses as she pulled him to his feet, turning slightly to give Pacifica and Dipper a coy wave. “Be good, now!”

 _No promises_ , Dipper answered, a faint smile on his face as he fluidly stood up, and Pacifica merely looked at her feet.

* * *

“So,” Dipper said. His voice was oddly warm.

“So,” she echoed. Pacifica couldn’t even try to glance at him.

She could feel his eyes on her, steady and sure. Will was still weeping, but quietly now, perched delicately on Dipper’s shoulder his both hands clenched in the boy’s cape. The demon had mentioned he and Dipper were friends despite everything, but it was still a little startling to see it in person. Dipper was distant to everyone except Mabel ( _and her_ , her brain whispered), and the fact that the little triangle trusted him was... well, it seemed unusual. Out of character, really.

“For your own sake, you should probably refrain from saying such things in the future,” Dipper said without preamble. He was taking steps towards her, cape swishing gently behind him as he went forward, and Pacifica swallowed hard.

“Um. Yeah, probably.”

“And for Will’s sake,” Dipper said, still advancing, “I sincerely hope you will never say anything close to that again. Not when Mabel is around.” The tiny little demon sobbing on his shoulder only proved his point.

“Don’t order me around,” Pacifica snapped, feeling a bit of fire in her chest.

“Far be it for me to dictate your fate, Ms. Northwest,” Dipper said, whatever the hell that meant, and he finally stopped walking. He was taller by a few inches, his head angled downwards to meet her eyes as they stood a foot or so apart. _Too close_ , and he took a tiny step back and she scowled.

“Stop looking into my head! And it’s Pacifica.”

“Pacifica,” Dipper amended, and the way he said her name was low and smooth and she – she hadn’t been expecting that. At all. He was close enough that she could touch his forehead if she reached, but Will’s frightened look on his shoulder made those kinds of thought flee from the room. When her eyes flicked to Dipper’s face, she was startled to see his expression pinched. “My... apologies about the former. It occasionally is difficult to tune out.”

“Sure,” she said sarcastically. Dipper stiffened but otherwise didn’t react, and she turned towards the door. “Well, I’m leaving.”

“I will escort you.”

“I can go home by myself.”

“I only meant out of the tent,” Dipper interjected, and he actually sounded a little harried for once. “My sister is still around. It would not hurt to be cautious.”

She paused, for a moment. Either Dipper was attempting to pit her against his twin, which sounded like something the twins would do if they wanted something out of her – according to Gideon, anyway – or Dipper was actually being sincere. _Just like earlier_ , she thought, and so she doubted, but if he wanted to walk her out so badly, then fine, he could do that. He didn’t seem inclined to hurt her, at any rate.

Not for the last time, she wished she could know when he was or wasn’t reading her mind. It would make things so much easier, and she tried very hard not to think about yesterday and the constellation on his forehead.

“H-h-he’s right,” Will sniffled, speaking out in the short silence, and Pacifica was startled into looking up at him. Dipper was as well, head turned slightly as his eyes gazed impassively at the demon. “It’s better if he, if he walks you out. J-just for today.”

She trusted Will a lot more than she trusted Dipper. Which was probably not a wise course of action, since Will was a literal demon, but. There it was.

“Fine,” she said. Dipper nodded once. “Just out of the tent, though.”

“Your antagonism is misdirected,” Dipper replied, quietly.

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

It was hard to tell how serious he was being when he agreed, “As you should.”

She was very, very, _very_ glad Dipper had not asked _her_ what she and Will had talked about in the mindscape as they left the room, walked along the short corridor, and exited out of the back flap that Pacifica had no idea existed. Dipper did not bid her farewell but Will gave her a small, shaky wave, one she returned, as she set off, intent on the Mystery Shack.

He probably wouldn’t take it well. Pacifica knew for certain that Mabel wouldn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Imagine the plot as a snail. Now imagine the snail suddenly becoming Turbo. That is what this plot of this fic is like.


	3. rule number two: gleefuls do not break promises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are falling into place, and Will deserves some credit for being brilliant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a beautiful day outside. Birds are singing... flowers are blooming... on days like these, kids like you should be
> 
> paying attention to the warning for blood and descriptions of gore in the first section! If you wish to skip, find the line [It had only been two days].
> 
> As always, thank you for the kind words and support! I appreciate it quite a lot.

Mabel finally walked into the basement as Dipper was cleaning off her blades. Will was shuddering and shivering as he viewed the dead body in the chair, and she could see that Dipper had spent his usual painstakingly long time collecting blood and that he wasn’t about to feed the demon himself. Will was very capable, but in equal amounts, he was also very cowardly; something Mabel hated about him, really.

“Sorry,” Mabel said as she draped herself along Dipper’s shoulders. There wasn’t a spot of red on him excepting traces of it in the folds of his knuckles; clean and fast, as Dipper always was. Mabel never understood how he didn’t like dragging it out, how he didn’t like the screams and wails and splatters of blood, how he didn’t look forward to this every few days – but that was more enjoyment for her, in the end, and she loved her brother to the world and back so she would let his flaws slide.

“I still cannot understand what you see in him,” Dipper answered, intent on the bloodied cloth and clean dagger in his hands, and Mabel briefly pressed her lips to his cheek before bouncing over to the dead woman in the chair. Dipper had slit both wrists and had let them drip, it seemed, using his magic to keep the woman’s heart pumping until she was dry. Efficient, but boring.

“I could say the same about you and the Northwest girl,” Mabel answered, reaching out to push the woman’s head up and backwards. Will let out a squeak when she pried open the woman’s jaw to look at rows of pristine teeth; still warm. “She’s hardly interesting. There’s fight in her, but she has no sense of how to hide her thoughts.”

“Honesty,” Dipper supplied.

“Yes, that,” Mabel said, waving a hand and moving down the woman’s body. There was a bruise at her neck, freckles dusted her shoulders, her eyes were green and wide and empty. Long eyelashes, no makeup. She wondered where Dipper had found her. “Even with her protections in place, it’s very quaint.”

“I find it refreshing,” Dipper answered.

“She is not afraid of you, you mean,” Mabel said.

“Yet her mind is shielded incredibly well.”

“A fascinating quandary,” Mabel agreed.

Dipper’s eyes flicked to the side, where Will was currently sitting on top of a now-empty jar, only a small pool of blood resting at its glass base. The little dream demon didn’t seem to notice he was crying, eye half-lidded, as he drooped over the lip of the jar and sniffled occasionally. He appeared to be lost in his thoughts, which was very possible.

“It makes you wonder,” Dipper said, and it was interesting that he was currently keeping his mind closed from her; usually, at least in front of Will, they spent more time communicating mentally than not, and she thought as such to him, knowing that Dipper would at least be conscious of her trying to get his attention.

In response, he tilted his head minutely in Will’s direction. _Ah_. That would explain why Will seemed lost in thought, if the demon was wandering the mindscape and just-so-happened to be in Dipper’s space in particular. She felt a flare of affection that Dipper was keeping Will out of hers by extension and let it show in a smile on her face.

“I can finish cleaning up from here,” Mabel offered after a few moments of silence.

“We need only dispose of the body,” Dipper said. He paused. “I suppose it would not hurt to harvest her organs, either.”

“All of them?”

“Mm. No. Kidneys, I think, and her heart and brain as usual.”

Mabel glanced over at the storage unit that took up a pretty big chunk of the south wall, behind the chair victims were typically bound to. Inside rested many different organs from many different people, and as Dipper had implied, there was an empty jar on the shelf marked ‘kidneys’.

“Will do, bro-bro.”

“I appreciate it, Mabel.” The blade was finally cleaned to his specifications, and he replaced it to its holder studded on the wall before turning. “Will, are you finished?”

The little demon jumped and began babbling incomprehensibly, even as he floated over to sit on Dipper’s shoulder, tiny hands clenching the plain black shirt. Dipper gently bumped Mabel’s shoulder with his before he left, and Mabel gave them both a sardonic wave before turning back to the corpse.

“Maybe a smaller knife for now,” she mused, reaching out with her magic and flicking one of her preferred blades into her hands. The edges shimmered with the rainbow, like gasoline in a puddle, and she remembered with a quick glance down that she was still in her show clothes; she’d have to be careful not to make too much of a mess. Though that was what multiple outfits were for, of course, and a cruel grin twisted her lips. “Let’s make this quick.”

* * *

It had only been two days since she’d met Will, but at this point, Pacifica had grown rather accustomed to falling asleep and waking up to see him waiting. It was interesting to see what Will’s mindscape looked like; dreaming had become much more exciting, knowing she had such a huge place to explore.

(“You can get lost in here,” Will had warned her yesterday. “Don’t stray too far until you’ve mapped out where to go or you’re with me.”)

“Hi, Will,” she said presently, smiling.

“H-hello,” he answered, floating down so he could perch on her shoulder. His weight came remarkably close to a feather’s. “How are you?”

“I’m okay. How about you?”

“Um, tired, m-mostly. Mabel had me, um, help her for an hour before Dipper n-noticed and came to get me.”

Pacifica grimaced. “Sorry to hear that.” Will made a noncommittal noise, and she didn’t ask the question begging to roll off of her tongue.. “Did you find out what you need to do next?”

“Y-yes,” Will said, sounding confident despite the stutter. “But it won’t be, um, won’t be easy.”

“Lay it on me.”

He hesitated.

Pacifica suddenly got the feeling that if she didn’t turn back now, she’d never be able to back out of this – but her worry and curiosity trumped her caution, and so she found herself walking along aimlessly, waiting for him to speak.

“I, um, d-don’t have an actual contract with either twin,” Will said at last. “Because if they’d made a deal, I would’ve b-benefited too. I’m bound to their will by, um, chains. Literal chains. If I disobey, th-the chains hurt me.”

Pacifica stared at him, but the demon seemed entirely positive about this, so she cautiously took his words with a grain of salt and said, “So, like, they’re invisible?”

He lifted an arm, and with a silly-sounding _pop_ cyan blue chain links came into being. There were two, each with one shackle around one of his wrists and one of his feet, connected to a third chain that seemed to lead on and on through the mindscape before disappearing over the apparent horizon.

“Oh my god,” Pacifica said with slowly dawning horror.

“Mabel c-can pulsate her magic through it.”

“But I thought you’re the one who gave them powers!”

Will shook his head. Or his whole body, rather, and Pacifica’s eyes widened as he said, “N-no, their abilities manifested when they were young. I just – I d-don’t know, actually, if I do anything. I think M-M-Mabel just likes keeping me around.”

“What about Dipper?” Pacifica asked, though she wasn’t quite sure why this was important to her, except that was a lie because she totally did.

“He... h-helped Mabel catch me.”

“But he’s your friend, right?”

“Y-yes,” Will hedged, “But he never tries to c-convince Mabel to let me go. He does his best to m-make things better, but – ”

“But he’s not the one in control, Mabel is,” Pacifica finished. Her face fell. “Oh, Will, I’m so sorry.”

The chains were soundless when Will shook them, and soon they faded out of view. “All I need t-to do to be free is to break the chains.”

“And I’m gonna guess that this isn’t easy.”

“N-no. They’re – they’re not physical chains. That’s why you can only see them in the mindscape.”

Pacifica reached out and waved her fingers in the vague area where the chain should be, and her fingers caught on them and almost yanked Will right off of her shoulder. “So I guess we can’t just snap them,” she mused, gently tugging on them. “Or use bolt cutters.”

“Mabel has to do it willingly,” Will said, “Or Dipper has t-to force it, but he won’t do that.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” The way he said it, without any hesitation, was enough to convince her of this. That, paired along with what she’d seen of the twins – unwittingly, her mind flew to the moment when Mabel had sprawled across Dipper’s lap on the armchair – made her sigh with a shake of her head.

“So how do I factor into this?”

“You need to convince Dipper to do it.”

“But you just said – ”

“I’ve always b-been looking for opportunities to escape,” Will said, and he was now standing on her shoulder, gently steering her towards one of the doors loosely interspersed in the area. “Dipper didn’t become aware of it until at l-least a few months after Mabel c-caught me, and since then he hasn’t been actively – helping, I guess, but he’s n-n-not getting in the way, either.”

She furrowed her eyebrows. Dipper was fascinating in a lot of ways, but underneath everything else was something… inhumane. She’d seen it the first time when she’d gone to their show, when he had smiled but it hadn’t reached his eyes, when he’d waved his hand and his expression was smooth and expressionless and _dead_ like a porcelain doll. He was different when she talked to him one-on-one, when his eyes would gleam and he would smirk and his laugh wasn’t small and polite, but even then, a shadow of something else dimmed his spark.

“And you want me because...?”

“He’s interested in y-you. Um.” He tittered nervously. “That came out a little creepier th-than I meant it to.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She put a finger on her chin. “I’d have to make it benefit him somehow,” Pacifica mused, and Will nodded eagerly on her shoulder.

“R-right. You’re catching on.”

Was she? She couldn’t say, because Dipper could still talk her into flushing bright red, and she wouldn’t lie to herself and say she didn’t want to hug him or something. He’d kissed her hand like twice already, that had to count for something, but – and she was off-track again, and she had to remember that the twins were dangerous, and that they were downright creepy in a lot of ways.

She exhaled slowly, and asked, “All right, you’ve got me. How do we do this?”

* * *

To say that Dipper was surprised to see Pacifica at the door to the Manor would be an understatement. He was well and truly startled, and he was fairly sure he spent five seconds staring at her before his brain caught up and allowed him to speak.

“Pacifica,” he managed, suddenly aware that he was dressed in civilian’s clothes, jeans with a plain black tee, blue converse and hair down over his forehead, wondering why she was here and quickly closing the mental connection between him and Mabel. “I... this is a surprise.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Not going to let me in?”

“That would be foolish and likely not end well for you,” Dipper said without missing a beat. He stepped outside and shut the door behind him, discouraging her from attempting entry. Or so he hoped, at any rate – her mind was completely closed off to him again, but she was fixing him with an odd look so he hoped his vague warning had been enough. “I do not mean to be rude, but I must ask: what brings you here?”

She tilted her head at him. After a moment, he mirrored her exactly, blinking owlishly when she did, and a slow smile spread across her lips.

(She was utterly _fascinating_.)

“Could you call Will?” she asked.

“What for?” Dipper answered, imitating her casual tone. She looked neither annoyed nor pleased that he continued to mimic her.

“It’s important.”

“How unconvincingly vague.” He offered her his arm without even thinking about it, and the feeling of her palm directly against his skin and not through a sleeve almost made him jump. Her palms were calloused, unexpectedly, and he began a slow and absentminded walk towards the gardens.

“You know exactly what it’s for,” Pacifica said.

He in fact did not, so he said, “Do I?”

“I’ll punch you, Dipper. See if I won’t.”

“A threat you would never follow up on, I am afraid.” Her fist moved, and he didn’t even think before a flare of cyan stopped it in place. He only released his magical hold on her when she pulled back. “Mm. I am mistaken, it seems.”

“You don’t need your gem to use magic?”

His hand went up to his neck unwittingly, though of course his tie was sitting neatly on top of the show clothes he would be changing into later that day, and for a moment he grappled with himself. If he told her the truth, though he suspected she already knew, she would tell Gideon, and the advantage of him not knowing that would be lost; on the other hand, if he kept quiet, it wouldn’t likely make a difference.

“No,” he responded at last.

“I thought so.” Suspicions confirmed. “Can you call Will now?”

“You have not given me a satisfactory reason to do so.”

“Please?”

Dipper waited until they had passed by one of the gardeners, an older man who waved at them both as they went by, before saying, “Humor me, Pacifica. Do I honestly know what you and he are planning?”

“The fact you know we’re planning at all is telling. Call him.”

He looked down at her. She was gazing at him with a glint of confidence in her blue eyes, and his heart very, very calmly flipped in his chest. He exhaled slowly. What on earth was this girl talking about? (Why was she endearing in her terrible neon clothes and big hoop earrings and messy blond hair?)

“Very well. Let us go to somewhere more private first.”

His wording could have been better, he supposed, when Pacifica’s face slowly blushed red, and just to sweeten the deal he patted the hand on his elbow with his own, smiling slightly. It didn’t take long to find the lonely stone bench surrounded by trellises and pretty white fencing and a small creek bubbling by, and he sat down only after she did, just close enough to be uncomfortable as he shut his eyes and cast his mind out wide.

 _Will?_ he called, as opposed to actually finding the dream demon. There was no response, so he added, _Pacifica wishes to speak with you._

Will didn’t give him a verbal confirmation that he heard, but the brief flare of assent was enough for Dipper. When he withdrew his power back into himself and opened his eyes, Pacifica was staring at him openly, lips slightly parted as her gaze traced over his face.

Her thoughts were focused on his birthmark again, and for once she didn’t look away when he met her eyes squarely. If anything, she was watching him; gauging his reaction, seeing what he would do. He felt a brief and sudden urge to let her touch his forehead, which was beyond strange, and after a moment he leaned a little closer. Tested the waters.

She didn’t pull away. In fact, she got closer. Their noses were scarcely an inch apart, and her blue eyes took up most of his vision. He spent half a second considering the pros and cons before his brain went _fuck it,_ and then he leaned down and kissed her, chaste and light.

Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn’t for her to make a startled sound before reaching up to cup his face, pulling him closer – nor was it for him to find that he actually liked it when he reached up to put a hand around the back of her neck.

* * *

“Dipper’s c-calling me,” Will said.

Mabel scowled outright at that. The dream demon was floating a bit out of reach, easily reachable with her magic, but it still bothered her that he was speaking out of turn. “Why?” she asked instead of yelling at him, spinning a blade over a finger before twirling and throwing it at the wall. It landed just left of center of the wooden target with a dull _thunk_.

“I don’t know.”

Mabel tried to reach out to her brother and ask him, but he had closed their shared channel very firmly; whatever he was doing required secrecy, apparently, and she felt a flare of annoyance and unhappiness. Still, she trusted her brother to tell her what was happening when it became relevant, and so she didn’t try to force her way in and instead sighed.

“Go, then,” she said, stabbing her next knife into the wall next to her with a practiced jab. The following knife followed the first, as did the one immediately after, and each time a blade made violent contact with wood Will flinched slightly in the air.

“O-okay,” he said presently, beginning to drift away, but just before he phased through the wall Mabel lifted a hand, grabbed him with her magic, and pulling him down so he was staring her in the eye. He let out an incomprehensible squeak of words, strung together without meaning, as she glared.

“You’ll tell me what’s going on if Dipper doesn’t,” she demanded, ordered, really. Will shook like a leaf as he nodded, and Mabel released her grip on him. “You got it?”

“Y-y-yes.”

“Good. Go.”

He went, this time almost flying out of the room, stumbling a bit on absolutely nothing in his rush. Dipper’s mind remained shut to her, and after a few frustrated attempts to get his attention, she gave up and let her magic dissipate. He would contact her when he felt like it, and if he didn’t, Will would fill her in.

Mabel briefly wondered if she should go bother Gideon. He was probably in the woods, and she had been curious about winged skulls for a while now after Dipper had mentioned seeing them in the Journal. Still, that would mean leaving the Manor, and this was one of the few days without a morning show... and Gideon would probably not appreciate her presence. Her fault, and Dipper’s too, really, but she was optimistic.

She looked down at the blades remaining. There were seven left, each shimmering faintly of a metallic rainbow. _When I’m done_ , she decided, and threw the next one at the wall.

This one landed on the bullseye.

* * *

Pacifica had never felt herself blush this hard in her life, but she was sure her entire face was completely red when she finally untangled her fingers from Dipper’s hair and he pulled away, breathing hard and staring at her wide-eyed, like he couldn’t believe that had just happened. Neither could she, if she was being honest, but she sure as hell wasn’t complaining as Dipper’s fingers stroked down her cheek.

“I have no idea what that was,” Dipper said after a moment, color reddening pale cheeks, and his voice quivered almost undetectably. It was such a huge difference from his usual self that Pacifica was thrown off guard for a split second.

“Um,” Pacifica said eloquently, and then she coughed and his hands pulled away and she said, “You’re, uh, pretty good at that.”

He stared at her.

“I mean,” Pacifica fumbled, “Making out in your garden seems kind of, uh, risky, but it was... nice?”

Dipper blinked at her once and then started laughing, still calm and quiet but more freely than she’d ever heard it, one hand rising so his fingers covered his mouth. Pacifica joined him after a moment, and that was how Will found them, giggling to each other on a stone bench in the middle of the Gleefuls’ garden.

“A-am I interrupting something?” Will asked after the two did not regain composure right away.

“No,” Dipper said, and his eyes were still crinkled at the corners in a true smile when he nodded at Pacifica. “She asked for you, however, and I would like to know why.”

Will’s eyes flicked in her direction. She gave him a minute nod and he looked back at Dipper, who regarded him calmly, his face slowly settling back into its neutral frown.

“I w-want to be free,” Will said, and he sounded far more confident than Pacifica knew he was.

“Tell me something I do not know,” Dipper answered, folding his arms across his chest. Without his show clothes and with his hair falling freely over his forehead, hiding his birthmark, he looked like a completely different person.

“Pacifica is going t-to help me.”

There was the briefest of pauses, during which Dipper tilted his head, eyes glinting with something unreadable. Then he gave the demon a short nod, ignoring Pacifica when she shot him a surprised look.

“We’re going to need your help.”

Silence.

Dipper crossed on leg over the other and leaned back, arms uncrossing so his hands could clasp together at his topmost knee. His face was inscrutable, and Pacifica watched him blink slowly.

“I suppose I should have seen this coming,” Dipper said eventually. “Let me think?”

“Of course,” Will said.

The demon bobbed up and down in the meantime as Dipper continued to stare straight ahead, looking absolutely neutral. Pacifica would have though he would be angry, but mostly he seemed resigned as seconds turned into one minute, then two.

He sighed, once, before he agreed, “I will do what I can on one condition.”

“P-please,” Will said instantly.

“When you are free, you will not stay in in this realm of existence. Ideally, you will never return to this dimension at all, but I am aware that is a stretch for you.” Dipper raised an eyebrow. “Have we a deal?”

Privately, Pacifica wondered. This was going far too smoothly, as though Dipper had known exactly what was going to happen – but then, she doubted Dipper would leave something this gaping without a contingency plan, and Dipper hadn’t seemed to read her mind. Else he would’ve been able to hear her mentally scream the entire time they were... kissing. Holy god. She still couldn’t that had happened, and she quietly patted her cheeks to bring her back to the present.

Will’s hand was raised, with yellow fire burning at his fingers. Dipper hadn’t extended one of his own, and she watched as he laughed, the fake one he always used, and said, “I like to think you respect my intelligence enough to know I would not dare.”

“N-never hurts to check,” Will said, amusement bleeding into his voice as his hand lowered, and he blinked at first Dipper and then her. “You realize th-there’s no way to make me d-do something without making a deal, r-right?”

“A double-edged sword,” Dipper said, and didn’t elaborate when Will’s eye narrowed. Instead, he turned to Pacifica and said, “How exactly do you play into all of this?”

“Honestly?” Dipper nodded, and Pacifica exchanged glances with Will before she answered, direct and truthful. “Will thought you’d be more inclined to agree if I was there when he asked.”

Dipper stared hard at her for a few moments, and then his eyes shifted to where Will was floating and he slowly turned in his spot. The realization hit her the exact same time it did Dipper, but he was the first to react.

“You would not _dare_ ,” Dipper hissed, all traces of easy casualness gone, tension pulling at his muscles.

“Try me,” Will shot back, and Pacifica looked between them, suddenly wishing she’d grabbed her grappling hook on her way out the door.

* * *

“You would betray trust like this?” Dipper said, fervently grateful he hadn’t shaken Will’s hand, hadn’t done anything to commit himself to the cause.

“I’m a _demon_ , Dipper Gleeful,” Will answered, his entire body cloaked in yellow flames. “And I’m d-desperate, in case you haven’t noticed.”

Dipper stood up, slowly, like a sudden move would cause Will to strike. Normally he wouldn’t be so cautious, but Pacifica was _right there_ , and one mistake would be disastrous – and then she followed him up and stepped up beside him, even as his instinct screamed to move in front of her. That wouldn’t do anything when magic was involved.

“I suppose that is true,” Dipper said at length, and then he gently touched a finger to Pacifica’s hand and thought, _Please don’t talk_. Her only reaction to that was a stiff and startled nod. “This leads me to believe that you are the reason why her mental shields are so fortified.”

“Yes.”

Pacifica made a startled sound. Dipper said, “Such tactless manipulation, Will. I must admit, I am disappointed.”

“Well, it worked, d-didn’t it?”

Dipper had to fight himself to keep the blood from rushing to his cheeks. “Irrelevant.”

“Not at all, actually,” Will replied. He was physically incapable of smiling, but Dipper knew that if he could, he would have a shit-eating grin on his face right now. “How about it? You, um, you help me out, and everyone g-goes home safe.”

“Everyone?”

“J-just because Mabel controls me doesn’t m-mean I couldn’t – ”

“Hurt my sister and _I will kill you_.”

“Who’s to say I haven’t already?”

Dipper raised a hand, eyes flashing bright cyan, anger causing the blood to roar in his ears and to make his vision tunnel in on the demon in front of him, his magic rearing up to his call and –

and a hand gently fell on his and tugged lightly, and Dipper was so badly startled that his magic shorted out and then Pacifica moved in front of him, blue eyes intent and heavy on his. She didn’t look afraid. She looked more tired than anything else.

“Dipper,” she said quietly, “You know that’s not going to help.”

She was right, of course. He knew this intrinsically. But then Will snapped his fingers and her eyes rolled up to the back of her head and she fell, and Dipper spent two seconds in shocked alarm before snarling, clenching his fingers into a fist, and whipping Will to the ground, once, pinning him there as he pushed down, down, down. Will didn’t make a sound as Dipper knelt next to him, eyes glowing cyan, and Pacifica lay quietly next to them.

 _What did you do to her_ , Dipper said, knowing Will would hear. His inner voice was steady and even, a direct contradiction to the fiery display of power, and the statement was not a question.

_Wouldn’t you like to know?_

Dipper slammed him into the ground again and was rewarded with a slight whimper. _Do not fuck with me, Will Cipher. You threaten my sister, hurt an innocent, and then expect me to do nothing?_

_I haven’t done anything!_

_How do I know you are not lying?_ This time the mental voice was a roar, and Will visibly winced. Dipper could vaguely detect Pacifica stirring – apparently Will wasn’t able to keep her unconscious without continuing to pour power into her – but he was immovable with his magic anchoring him and Will in place. _Moreover, if you_ knew _you would coerce me like this, why did you wait so goddamn long?!_

_Well, now, even you should know that’s a dumb question._

Dipper bared his teeth in an animalistic snarl, and Will was crying now but stared him down without flinching. After a few moments, Dipper’s hand fell lifelessly to his side and Will floated upward, brushing imaginary dust off of his body, and Dipper cradled his head in his hands. Pacifica chose that moment to sit up, eyes blinking rapidly.

“Dammit, Will,” he whispered. Pacifica’s hand was soft and light on his shoulder as she used him as leverage. Her fault – it was all her fault.

“I’m surprised, actually,” Will said. “Y-you’re quite attached.”

“Shut up.”

“It’s b-been only a few days, too.” Dipper didn’t deign that with a response. “Y-you know what you have to do, Dipper Gleeful. Shall we make a deal?

The sound that came out of his mouth was half a whisper, half a scream, but in the end he gritted his teeth and held out his hand. Pacifica made a small sound but didn’t make any move to stop him, something for which he was in equal parts grateful and frustrated.

“I will free you,” Dipper forced out, “On the conditions that you will not use your powers to harm my friends and family and that, upon your freedom, you will leave and never return here.”

“Deal,” Will said without hesitation, and it felt like his hand was dipped into a bowl of liquid nitrogen when contact was made. He didn’t remember if he screamed.

* * *

Mabel was not prepared for Dipper’s mind to open so suddenly, but there it was, and just as abruptly he was dumping information into her brain without asking permission first. She staggered and leaned against the wall, pressing most of her weight against it, as she struggled to work through everything he was sending her.

“Mabel?” her uncle Stan asked, and she held up a hand, _just a second_. He fell silent and leaned forward on his cane, confusion and concern lining every wrinkle in his face, but he didn’t actively try to force her to pay attention to him.

 _Dipper, slow down!_ she thought, hard, barely countering the tide he was shoving to her. He heard her, though, because the flood slowed to a trickle and she was able to find her bearings and examine everything anew. It didn’t take nearly as long as she thought it would. Most everything he sent her could be summed up in a few words: Will was planning something. Pacifica Northwest and Gideon Pines were involved somehow. Keep the Journal safe. He wanted her to be armed at all times. They needed to get out of Gravity Falls as soon as possible.

“Sorry, Uncle,” Mabel said after a moment, straightening her posture and giving the old man a perfunctory smile. It came out a little more predatory than intended, but that was fine. “You were saying?”

“I was just thinking that sales are so good that we’ll extend our stay for another week,” uncle Stan said without missing a beat, as if there hadn’t been an abrupt pause in their conversation. He gave her a toothy smile, twirling his cane in his hands. “How’s that sound?”

“Oh,” Mabel said, mind racing. She was a master liar, just as Dipper was, but uncle Stan knew all of the tricks; she had learned from him, after all. “I’d rather not, to be honest.”

“Oh?”

She nodded, and her uncle scrutinized her closely as she said, “It’s just – it’s so stifling here, Uncle Stan. I know we need to work on the thing downstairs, but... what can we do?” Dipper was listening in, she could feel him on the back of her senses, and he whispered, _We won’t be getting Gideon’s Journal anytime soon._ “We won’t be getting the Pines’ Journal anytime soon,” Mabel parroted, making sure her face looked just a tiny bit crestfallen. “Gideon hasn’t gotten any less stubborn.”

“What about the girl? The one visiting this summer?”

 _The fact he knows more about Pacifica without even meeting her is a little creepy_ , Dipper mused. Mabel was inclined to agree.

“We can’t read her mind,” Mabel said, because lies were more believable when there was a little truth sprinkled here and there. “And you saw her resist Dipper’s hypnotism. Together we could barely get her to agree to let Dipper walk her home.” Which was something they always did in order to garner brownie points, and it was only because Pacifica had immediately been attracted to Dipper that their magical gambit had worked at all.

She was briefly tempted to use her powers to force Uncle Stan to agree – but she didn’t dare when Dipper wasn’t physically nearby to balance her magic out. When it came to telepathy, she tended to be a little too aggressive, and uncle Stan had enough experience with their abilities to have a great deal of resistance in any case.

“I’ll think about it,” her uncle said in a way that suggested that he had already thought about it and the answer would be an inevitable ‘no’. He was always after money, after all, and she and her brother were his best investment yet. “I’m surprised, Mabel. Usually you love staying here.”

“I don’t know,” Mabel said, biting her lip slightly. She didn’t have to lie when she said, “Something just feels off. I’m not sure what.”

Uncle Stan patted her shoulder, and despite everything she did feel a swell of affection for the man. He’d taken her and Dipper in when they were young, and she wouldn’t forget that, even if it seemed like he only cared about them for the money they consistently earned him.

“It’ll be all right, sweetie,” he said presently, and they shared smiles. “We can increase security, if that will make you feel better. Does Dipper have anything to add?”

“Let me check.” Her twin was still listening, so he relayed, _I don’t think more people will help._ Mabel parroted this exactly and then said, “I think the threat is more supernatural than anything else.”

“I’ll have Soos set some wards,” uncle Stan said with a nod. “Did you and Dipper refresh the ones around the tent?”

“Yeah,” Mabel said, reminding Dipper to make sure their basement room was properly protected as well. He sent confirmation before his mental presence departed, like an itch that had finally been scratched. “Just tell us when they’re set, and we’ll dump some extra power in them. Is your Journal safe?”

“Always with me,” her uncle confirmed. “And yours?”

“In the box.”

“Good.” He held out his arms, and even though she felt like she was five again, she went forward and hugged him back. “We’ll be just fine, sweetheart. One extra week, okay? Then we’ll take off.”

“Okay,” she said, even as she felt a niggling sense of alarm and worry. Dipper had definitely seemed off, especially with that info dump he’d put on her earlier. Something was very, very wrong.

* * *

Pacifica didn’t need Dipper to spell out what had happened after she’d woken up - and so she remained quiet as he remained kneeling on the stones, his breathing even, palms pressed flat on the ground. He was much scrawnier than she would have expected him to be; she supposed the cape made him seem much more intimidating, but from this close his elbows were as sharp and lean as his cheekbones and just as likely to cut.

“Gideon’s warded the Mystery Shack,” she said after a bit of silence. “I should be safe from him.”

Part of her felt like she’d been stretched out, dried in the sun, and then shattered into a million pieces – only a part of her, though. She was more used to broken promises than most people thought, because even though her parents loved her beyond measure, they did not have a good idea of how to raise a child. Will’s betrayal of her trust was something she could recover from.

“I am going to kill that demon,” Dipper breathed after a few moments, finally looking up. His eyes danced with fury when he glanced in her direction, and a wave of fierce protectiveness washed over her. “I am going to kill him and I will enjoy it.”

After a moment’s pause, she reached out and took one of his hands in hers. His skin was smooth and cool to the touch, and unlike her, he showed no hesitation as he linked his fingers with hers. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “This is my fault. I shouldn’t have listened to him.”

“You should not have,” Dipper agreed, which only served to make her feel worse, but then he added, “But I think it was inevitable, in the end. Your moral compass is extraordinarily well-tuned. I cannot say I am surprised.”

“Thank you. I think.”

“Thank _you_ ,” Dipper said, and he first balanced on the balls of his feet before he stood, gently pulling her up with him. “Though the circumstances are not ideal, I am certain this scenario would have been much worse had he not used you as a bargaining chip.”

“So you’re really that ‘attached’ to me, huh?” she said with a weak grin. Her knees still felt wobbly.

“I suppose I am,” he agreed easily, and even though he was maybe squeezing her hand a bit too hard, he looked a bit more composed, a bit more like himself. She was flushing anyway, dammit. “I am just as surprised as you. Three days is not a long time.”

“ _I’m_ surprised you see anything in me,” she said honestly, looking down to view her llama sweater, bright pink socks, blue shorts and neon sneakers. “Don’t a lot of people try to get your attention? I thought you and Mabel were used to this kind of thing.”

“You are the first to resist my hypnotism,” Dipper pointed out. Everyone liked to remind her of that, it seemed. “Beauty is not skin-deep.”

“You would know,” she said, and it struck her again that she was currently holding hands with a minor celebrity – a minor celebrity whose temper could shift from ice-cold to white-hot in a second, whose personality looked more and more similar to his volatile twin’s the more she looked, who was ethereally beautiful and whose mind held dark secrets she couldn’t begin to fathom – and that she liked it, and that he also liked it too, apparently, and she quickly shifted her attention to something else. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Certainly.”

“Will says that he needs blood to maintain his energy in this dimension.” Dipper stiffened beside her, but she tugged him forward and he walked with her. She had no idea where she was going in the winding garden, but he let her lead regardless. “Where do you get the blood?”

He was quiet. Pacifica felt her smile slip, felt some of the darkness creeping back in; she knew it was too perfect, and Gideon’s warnings rang in her inner ear, and Dipper and Mabel, after everything, were sinister and fascinating in the same breath.

“I probably should have told you about our lives before I kissed you,” he said at last, and when he looked at her, his face was carefully veiled. “Do you truly wish to know?”

“I can guess.”

“Then I will explain.” His voice is heavy. “And... as a general disclaimer, you should know my sister and I have never been known as nice people.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually like this chapter the best out of all of them, I think, mostly because Pacifica and Dipper. Not that I'm biased or anything, lmao, but in all seriousness, this one seems better written in general. Go me, I guess?


	4. rule number three: gleefuls never let emotions cloud their judgment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will starts testing the waters. Everyone else reacts poorly to this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your kind words and support! I appreciate it, really I do <3
> 
> There are multiple mentions of blood but no actual descriptions of gore or the like in this chapter.

“You _told_ her?”

“I did,” Dipper said, unshakeable, unmovable. His thoughts were hers, the lines between their minds ever-shifting and moving, and she felt his doubt, caution, creeping fear as her own.

There was something else he was keeping in the dark, though. She could feel it, like water moving around a rock in a river, and her curiosity bled into his mind but he did not acknowledge it. He was hiding something from her, and while they both had secrets, this one was far larger and far more buried than she would have liked.

“She took it well,” Mabel said at last, feeling a slight twinge of jealousy that was overshadowed by her concern.

“Quite, really, but she also cannot currently look me in the eye.”

“Is it that surprising?”

“Not in the least,” Dipper said with a shake of his head. He looked wistful; an unusual look on him. “Better from me than from Gideon, though, I should think. Even if he does not quite know the scope of everything.”

“And he’s convinced we’re planning to kill uncle Stan and that we need his Journal to destroy the world.” Mabel shook her head. “I don’t think Pacifica takes him very seriously.”

“She listened to his warnings about me,” Dipper replied. “Once the initial rush faded from – _that_ ,” and Mabel only had to dig a little bit before she started squealing excitedly and Dipper let out a soft groan, “She spent quite a bit of time inwardly panicking and second-guessing herself. It would have been amusing if I had not been personally invested.”

“Aw, my poor, sweet brother,” Mabel said with a grin, and she didn’t give Dipper any warning before she jumped to her feet and tackled him in his bed. He let out a startled yelp but started laughing as they fought each other both physically and magically, her to stay on and him to push her off. “How does it feel to be in _love_?”

“Unpleasant,” he said, grinning, eyes dancing with amusement. It was rare to see him like this, and that told Mabel all she needed to know as she finally wrestled him into submission. “And pleasant in equal amounts. It is... weird.”

She kissed his forehead before finally rolling off of him, catching herself before hit the floor and floating over back to her bed. It took a bit more effort than she expected, and she frowned slightly as she nested back into her covers and picked up the Journal again; couldn’t be lack of sleep, could it? “You understand how it feels now?”

“Yes, but that does not mean I understand what you see in Gideon.”

“Who said I was in love with him?” Mabel said with a laugh, and the images she flashed in his mind echoed of _platonic, friends, he rejected me once, maybe more one day but not now_. “I like him.”

“Is there a difference?”

“A big one, brother dear.”

“One I would not know, as it were.”

“And how sad that is,” Mabel said, smirking. “Give it time. She’ll return here undoubtedly because her curiosity is insatiable. Who knows? Maybe she’ll come back for you.”

“It is unlikely,” Dipper said, and he sounded as if he didn’t care. His mental state clearly suggested otherwise, and that dark secret was at the forefront of his thoughts. “But I appreciate it, sister.”

“As you should.” She reopened the Journal to the page she had been reading.

(What was he hiding from her?)

* * *

Okay, so. Dipper killed people.

Because Will needed blood to eat. So not only did he kill them, he drained them dry, and then Will somehow consumed it by the jarful, and –

and he told her that Mabel liked to torture people, but he didn’t because he didn’t find it at all interesting, and that this happened in the Manor’s basement, and –

they kept organs neatly labeled and sorted because Mabel and occasionally Dipper needed them for spells and sacrifices, he had called it _harvesting_ , and –

Mabel incorporated knives into their shows sometimes, Pacifica had never actually seen this but Dipper said so and if what he said was true, it wasn’t that unbelievable, and –

she was really good with blades in general, they actually had acts where she threw knives directly at him and it was a game to them, she’d try to actually hurt him and he’d never let her, and –

“I suppose you could say we treat death as a technicality more than anything else,” he’d told her, eyes glinting, and –

 _Gideon was right,_ she thought, _about everything_.

Her cousin was currently snoozing on the bed across from her, breathing light and even, and she focused in on that as she pressed her hands against her eyes.

(“Younger adults are best,” Dipper said said, eyes cast to his feet. “Healthier. Will is not tremendously picky, but considering the unfortunate circumstances that he was brought here... it is a kindness, I suppose, in its own way.”)

She was disgusted and her blood curdled in her veins because she _still_ liked the guy after he told her he was basically every child’s night terror, the story parents told their children so they would eat their vegetables, that, oh yeah, any disappearances around the area could be attributed to the Gleeful family. She still liked him, and even as the nightmare fuel he’d given her swirled in her mind, a second would pass and she would remember her lips against his, his hands on her neck and his hair between her fingers, and then she would mentally flail and she really wanted to sleep.

And then she would remember she didn’t want to sleep, because Will had blackmailed Dipper into making a deal with him and if he hadn’t made that deal, Will would’ve hurt her, would’ve hurt Mabel. Will would find her and bring her into his mindscape again if she fell asleep, or maybe he wouldn’t but he might, and was she willing to risk that? Will was stuttering and uncertain and sad and afraid, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t wily and cunning and _Dipper had made a deal with him_. Neither would go back on their word, and so she lay in oppressed silence, wishing she had listened to Gideon when she had arrived just days ago.

Her palms dug into her eyes just a bit more before she pulled them away, staring at the sloped wooden beams of the ceiling. The covers were scratchy beneath her bare calves, and she shivered as she rolled over and curled into a ball.

He _killed_ people. Regularly. And he had treated it like something that was just meant to happen, nothing you could do about it, life and death are two sides of the same coin. She was dying to ask Gideon what had happened the past years he’d been here, to instill a fear and caution so profound that her cousin would grit his teeth at the mere mention of their name.

Well, not literally dying. She hoped.

(“Of course, we generally target those who have wronged. It does not justify it, but we do this out of necessity, and anything, however small, means something.”)

Pacifica had a problem with a soft laugh and a small smile and a gentle kiss – and a shadow so long it could blot out the sun, if it ever escaped the stiff cage it was kept it in.

* * *

Contrary to popular belief, Dipper did own a cell phone. There were key connections in numerous parts of the country that he occasionally called up, just to maintain relations and keep things neat, but other than that, it remained tucked into a pocket as an afterthought, always on vibrate and typically never touched once during the day. (They already had Soos to manage their social media accounts, and Mabel had always been better at that sort of thing anyway.)

Thus his surprise when he’d barely pulled on his black slacks and light blue button-up and his phone buzzed from his bedside table. Mabel made an annoyed sound as she turned over in her bed, and Dipper quickly picked it up and walked out of the room, cape and shoes and socks in hand, as he brought it to his ear, saying on automatic, “Dipper Gleeful speaking.”

“Oh, good,” and _that_ was the last voice he expected to hear.

“... Pacifica?”

“The one and only,” she answered, and he frowned because her voice was strangely cheery. He would have expected something less... open? Less unguarded? “Hey. I know it’s a little early, but I just wanted to ask you some things.”

“I am not surprised,” he said. At this point he turned into one of the little studies that peppered the Manor, and he eased himself onto a chair as he worked to pull a sock on with one hand. “What do you wish to know?”

“Is it true you tried to kill Gideon once?”

“You do not waste time, I see,” he replied. His gut twisted uncomfortably, and he set to work on the opposite sock now. “I did not try to kill him, but I did attack him.”

“Why?”

“Is Gideon there? I can only imagine he would like to hear my reasoning.”

“He says he already knows why; you monologued before you actually tried to do anything.”

“Sounds about right,” Dipper said thoughtfully, because he was an idiot back in the day. The socks were now on; he slipped his feet into the black pumps with quiet grace. “Mm. Regardless, yes, I did attack him, solely because he broke Mabel’s heart.”

“G, did you actually – ” and then there was brief chatter, too indistinct to make out no matter how hard Dipper tried to listen in. After a few more moments of this, Pacifica said clearly, “He says he let her down gently.”

“Perhaps,” Dipper said, and he suddenly wished he could flash images in Pacifica’s mind, his sister slumped over and unmoving, powers flaring without warning as vases shattered against walls and blades buried themselves to the hilt in old, antique wood, the mental battles as Dipper fought to keep her abilities contained, “But Mabel does not do things in halves.”

“And she’s still not over him.”

“Somewhat. Or, actually, not at all.”

Mabel lazily reached out to him along their mental link, probably attracted by the repeated mention of her name, and he told her he was speaking with Pacifica over the phone. She settled in the back of his senses, quietly listening in, as he asked, “Is there anything else you want to know?”

“Yes, actually,” she said, and then, “Just a sec, Gideon,” and then in a whisper, “I didn’t get any sleep last night because I was afraid Will would drag me into the mindscape – is there anything to, like, protect me from that?”

“I – ” _Dammit, Dipper, you should’ve known that might be an issue_. “My apologies, Pacifica, I should have – yes, there is. It requires that I enter your house, however, unless Gideon is able to do it himself.”

A brief moment of conferral, and then, “Gideon says that there are wards already around the Shack.”

 _Unicorn hair_ , Mabel whispered sleepily, and Dipper said, “Did he use unicorn hair?”

“Unicorn hair?” More discussion. “No.”

“Well, I trust Gideon to take care of it from there,” Dipper said, and Mabel laughed because that was a blatant lie and if it wasn’t done by nightfall, Dipper would definitely be going over himself to ward the place. “Anything else?”

“Uh, yeah. Do you want to get, um, like, coffee or something?” Dipper held the phone away from his ear when a loud, accusatory sound echoed through the receiver, and Pacifica snapped, “Oh my god, G, shut up.”

Dipper waited for Gideon’s exclamations to fade away - he deserved those, really he did - before he said slowly, “You realize that I am a murderer and basically all around dreadful person, yes?”

“Yep, and unfortunately – G, could you please stop for one second – and unfortunately, my hormones and brain have decided that you’re amazing regardless. Which sucks, but I’m not one to argue, and _stop it Gideon._ ”

The cape went on at last, Dipper tilting his head to keep the phone to his ear as Mabel laughed and laughed and laughed in the back of his mind. “What time?” he asked instead of anything else, standing up.

“Now would be good – _Gideon let go holy god._ Sorry, I’m going to hang up now, meet me at that intersection in fifteen.”

“Will do,” he said, though he had no idea what she was talking about, and then she hung up and he slowly brought the phone away from his ear. Mabel still hadn’t stopped laughing, and his voice sounded lost and confused even to him as he mumbled, “What the fuck?”

 _Four days and she’s in love with you!_ Mabel said, still cackling. _Unbelievable. I’m very jealous, brother dear._

“I suddenly do not understand anything.” There was elation, to be sure, creeping slowly but steadily up his spine, and relief weighing cold and sweet on his bones, but how could she have – one night, no sleep, and she wanted to meet up with him? “Nor do I know where she was referring to.”

 _Well, there’s only, what, eight main intersections in Gravity Falls? Can’t be hard to figure out_. His twin sounded wistful. _I’m happy for you._

 _Thank you,_ he thought instead of speaking out loud. His heels clicked staccato on the wooden floor as he wove his way to the Manor’s main doors. _One day Gideon will understand your radiance, sister._

 _I doubt that, but I appreciate the sentiment_. The feeling of wistfulness only grew, but Mabel laughed when she sensed Dipper feeling both apologetic and guilty. _Go. I’ll mind Will for the day._

It took Dipper everything he had to shove the secret into the deepest recesses of his mind, to not think about it, to not let Mabel see, and he cast a glance down to his hand. Burned into his skin was a triangle, scar tissue on his palm, and he let out a quiet breath.

He couldn’t do it now. He’d have to wait until she was sleeping.

(He hoped to hell and back it would hurt less if she was asleep.)

_Thank you, Mabel._

_Anytime, Dipper. Well, relatively speaking._

He snorted, an inelegant sound he rarely let heard, and a passing manservant jumped in surprise and skittered past without glancing at him.

* * *

There was something very, _very_ wrong, Mabel knew, because Dipper was still hiding something from her, Pacifica had been far too compliant with the whole ‘we kill people’ thing, and Will was acting – strangely.

That, combined with the fact that Mabel had actually nicked Dipper with one of her knives during yesterday’s show, only made her more suspicious. Something was happening, and she was not involved, and that frightened and infuriated her in equal amounts. She and Dipper did not do things solo because they were a team; more than that, they were twins, partners-in-crime, siblings-in-arms. There was a very good reason for this: when they were together, their powers were stronger. For Dipper to deliberately work against it was unthinkable, and this. This wasn’t right. The secret that weighed dark and heavy in his mind wasn’t right, the way Pacifica had just accepted their terribleness without so much as blinking was beyond wrong, and Will –

“Y-you look frustrated,” Will said, and Mabel’s pencil snapped in her fingers. Something randomly hit the wall, but Dipper, after witnessing previous episodes, had removed everything breakable in their room, so the wireless mouse merely thudded against the ground and rocked sadly on the floor.

“Shut up, Will,” she said after a moment, and this time she picked up a pen. It was made of stainless steel; Dipper had gotten it for her when she had broken a cheap plastic one and ink had splashed all over her clothes.

“M-maybe you should go f-for a walk?”

“If you’re so eager to get me out of the house, you might as well drag me kicking and screaming,” she snapped back, scanning the papers again. Having abilities like hers did not, unfortunately, exempt her from getting a proper education, and this essay for her online English class was already past due.

There was silence for a few moments.

And then she screamed – her body felt like it was on fire – and yellow surrounded her vision as the window opened and she was bodily tossed out. Her own magic caught her before any real damage could be done, but never, _never_ had Will flaunted his powers like this, and she straightened herself several stories above the ground, glaring at the little blue triangle in the window as he closed it, yellow glowing around the sill.

When she floated up and tried to use her magic to open it, his own actively resisted and he – he was a lot stronger than she had thought. It was only when she pulsed her magic violently through the chains that connected them that he relented, and even then, he wasn’t crying. He just watched her climb in, unspeaking even as she glared, and he didn’t make any noise of complaint when she pinned him against the wall with her powers and left him there.

She picked up her pen, sat back down at her desk, and began to twirl the steel rod in her fingers. She was calm for the most part, but she was also worried and she knew that a little bit more of this, this _whatever_ it was, and she would start panicking. At that point she would have to contact Dipper before she did something dumb, but for now she could take it, breathing in and out as deeply and slowly as she could before she cast her eyes back down to her paper.

“I’m hungry,” Will said suddenly. His voice grated on her ears.

“Tough luck,” she answered.

There was a burning sensation in one of her hands, and when she looked, yellow fire danced around her fingers; with a growl she spun in her chair and cut off the demon’s magic with the magical equivalent of a snap. Will was still pinned to the wall, slightly lopsided with his arms and legs outstretched, but his eye was narrowed in amusement and suddenly, suddenly Mabel realized that he _could_ harm her. But why hadn’t he done so sooner? Why would he have waited this long to let her know?

“Because I didn’t have a ch-chance back then,” Will said, and too late she realized her mind was too open. She slammed her barriers into place, and Will chuckled and said again, “M-maybe you should go outside?”

She needed Dipper. She needed Dipper _now_. But when she sent a desperate plea to her brother, there was no response, even though the channel between them was open.

Will laughed, and that was when she knew that she was on her own.

“All right,” she said slowly, eyes narrowed. She eased off of her chair and took small steps to her door, watching Will all the while, peeling him off the wall as she stood in the doorway. “We’ll go outside. I’ll find you something to eat.”

She needed to find Dipper in town, and if Will somehow stopped her from going there – well, because she knew he hated it, she vowed to make her victim’s death as bloody as possible.

* * *

Pacifica had been waiting for ten minutes by the time Dipper showed up. She almost didn’t recognize him at first, only because he didn’t pull back the hood on his sweatshirt until he was within ten feet, and he wasn’t walking like he usually did, either, all slouched and tired instead of tall and straight. His face was somehow paler than usual, and his eyes flicked about cautiously as he came to stop in front of her.

“What’s with the clothes?” she asked, deliberately ignoring the elephant in the room.

“It would be bad if someone recognized me,” Dipper answered, and it was clear his mind was elsewhere. “And Mabel is... unresponsive. I am concerned.” She mulled this over for a bit – she would assume this had something to do with how the twins always seemed to know what the other was thinking - but, before she could ask, Dipper seemed to shake himself and gazed down at her. “I am also surprised you are willing to even see me after what I told you yesterday.”

She shrugged. She really didn’t have a good answer for any of it, and she’d always been one to do first, apologize later. Besides, she was one-hundred percent certain that Dipper would never hurt her, and she flashed him a small smile. “Who knows, huh?”

He let out a quiet laugh, tucking his hands into the pocket of his hoodie. “You tell me.”

They stood in silence for a bit. Pacifica privately berated herself for not thinking of a place to go, but she had just wanted – she’d wanted to leave, leave Gideon to stew and maybe actually get unicorn hair or something, she was tired of him trying to control her because he thought he knew better. He didn’t need to forget nor forgive, and like hell would she forget the Gleefuls’ pasts anytime soon, but, regardless, as it stood.

“Where should we go?” she asked him after a while, and Dipper smiled and offered her his arm. She took it without even blinking; it was second nature at this point, and she reflected again that she’d only know him for a precious few days. His smile was small but sincere, and she glanced at his hand and wondered how much blood had been spilled by it.

He ended up leading her first to a coffee shop, where she was rather startled to find that the barista knew Dipper’s order without him even speaking (her name was Wendy, and she told Pacifica how Dipper had been completely besotted with her at one point in his life as the boy in question protested mightily), and after a cheerful goodbye they went into the forests surrounding the town. A few minutes of walking later and they were in a small clearing, and he gestured for her to sit on the old, worn log resting quietly in the middle of it.

“There is a show in one and a half hours,” Dipper said, both hands wrapped around his salty caramel latte as he placed himself next to her. It was a sweet drink that she would not have expected him to enjoy. “You have me until then.”

Part of her wondered if she should be concerned that Dipper was, in his own words, a murderer, and that she was alone with him in a forest clearing away from town. The other part was already opening her mouth to ask, “Are the mental protections on my mind still in place?”

Dipper blinked once and then looked over at her. His eyes flared briefly cyan, and then he shook his head, casting his gaze back down to his coffee. “Will has removed them.”

“Are they why you couldn’t hypnotize me?”

“It is likely.”

Hm. She doubted he could give her much else about that, so she switched gears. “What happened when you attacked Gideon?”

“I attempted to intimidate him into apologizing, or to at least agree to try and be friends. For Mabel’s sanity, as well as mine.” And of course Dipper wouldn’t do things without benefiting himself, and he elaborated without her even opening her mouth. “He rejected her by meeting her at the restaurant, telling her he wasn’t interested, and then leaving her there. She was... distraught, when she called me to get her. To say the least.”

Ah, Gideon. She would’ve pinned him at someone who was incompetent in social situations, and it pleased her, however slightly, to see that she was right. “Are the gems the sources of your magic?”

“No,” Dipper said, and did not say anything more. Pacifica was tempted to press, but he would’ve detected her desire to and would have answered already if he had felt inclined. He clearly did not, so she again changed the subject.

“Will said your abilities manifested when you were young.”

“Six years old. Yes.”

“Why capture a demon if your powers are strong by themselves?”

“A better question to ask is why not?” He shrugged. “It was not my idea. Will has always been Mabel’s project.”

“Where is Will from, really?”

“I do not know.”

“Is that a lie?”

“Partially.”

She could accept that. “Why do you need Gideon’s journal so badly?”

“To save someone.” That wasn’t the answer she’d been expecting. Not at all, and her next question was derailed as a consequence, and he finally looked up from his coffee. “May I ask a question of my own?”

“Oh,” she said, and then she fumbled, “I’m not really that, uh, interesting, but, sure, if you want.”

“Why are you here, with me, right now, with so little concern? Truly.”

She stared at him. He stared back, and he took a careful sip of his drink as he waited.

* * *

Pacifica Northwest, who seemed scatterbrained and impulsive at first, thought in diagrams – and when her thoughts were not in diagrams, they were still exceedingly, surprisingly orderly. He wouldn’t have expected that from her underneath those mental blocks, but there it was, and he carefully detached himself so he wouldn’t accidentally read her answer before she was ready.

And then, quite suddenly, his attention was pulled back when all of her thoughts jumbled together into a giant mess, and Dipper realized that she was getting flustered or uncertain and _that_ was why she acted differently depending on who was in the room or what was happening around her.

“I don’t know,” she said at last. “I don’t think I can ever look at you the same way again, obviously, and I know you didn’t go into detail but in some ways that makes it worse,” and both of them wince at the same time, “But all of that aside, you’re actually – really interesting. In a kind of creepy way.”

“Mm. That is the goal at the Tent.”

“Really?” He nodded, and she mused, “That explains a lot.”

“Help me understand,” he said instead of going along with her tangent. “You choose to ignore the wrongs I committed because you find me interesting?”

“It sounds terrible when you phrase it like that,” Pacifica huffed, “But yeah, I guess so. And...”

He watched her. He didn’t have to wait long.

“And I’m actually very confident that you won’t hurt me, so,” she said, reaching up to run her fingers through her hair. A nervous tic, perhaps? “Also, Will seems to respect you, and he probably won’t hurt me if I stick close to you.”

“What makes you confident?”

“I don’t know, maybe the fact you actually made a deal with a demon to protect me,” Pacifica said wryly, and Dipper felt heat creep up the back of his neck, “On the condition that he doesn’t hurt friends or family.”

He coughed delicately into his fist. “And the other part? Clearly I did not protect you from Will earlier.”

“You were caught off-guard. Even I could see that.”

“I do not think that will make a difference, should it happen again.”

“Well, you’re better at the telepathy crap, right? It should be right up your alley.”

“Did you also figure that out on your own?”

“Nah, Gideon did. He told me that you could probably do mind control or something, too, and that Mabel could rip a man in half with her telekinesis.”

“The second of those things is true,” Dipper said, carefully controlling his outward reaction at his words.

“Eww.”

“My thoughts exactly. I really do not like that sort of thing.”

“But you kill people anyway.” It sounded accusatorial. Dipper disguised a flinch as a movement to bring his coffee to his lips.

“Will must be fed, and Mabel is, on occasion, otherwise preoccupied.” It was strange to speak so frankly about this. Anyone else would’ve called the police on him and his sister – not that they would’ve found anything – but maybe Gideon had already told Pacifica how useless that would end up being. “Do you honestly believe that I am a good person, Pacifica?”

“You scam money out of people with your Tent, you kill people for blood and organ sacrifice, you’ve dabbled in necromancy and you convinced my cousin you’re out to kill him.” Her eyebrows were raised when he looked over at her. “You tell me, Dipper Gleeful.”

“And yet you are here. Seated not a foot away from me.” His coffee was now empty, and he let it drop to the forest floor. He’d pick it up when they left. “Because you find me _interesting_.”

“You also find _me_ interesting for some reason. I think it’s fair.”

“That would be because you _are_ interesting,” he corrected. “I am dangerous.”

“And also ridiculously pretty, which isn’t fair, by the way.”

“I am flattered.” This was very familiar territory. Flirting could be deadly if wielded in the correct fashion, and Dipper always strove to hone his weapons. “You are, of course, quite beautiful yourself.”

“Pssh.” She looked away; predictable. “You’re the first person to tell me that.”

“You jest.” She was not, he could tell from her expression, and that didn’t at all surprise him. “I suppose it would be the attire,” Dipper said thoughtfully, smirking, and she whacked his shoulder with the back of her hand as he went on, “Neon does not really suit you.”

“Yeah?”

“Violet,” he said with a nod. “You would look good in violet.”

“You’ve been thinking about this.”

“I _am_ quite attached to you.”

She leaned forward, blue eyes dancing. He followed her lead, closing the distance between them just a bit more, as she said in a lower voice, “I really shouldn’t be doing this.”

“I agree.” Neither pulled away. “You will not hear me complaining, however.”

“Gideon will never let me hear the end of it.”

“Gideon does not control your life.”

“That’s true, at least.”

He carefully maintained distance between them. He would not initiate this; Pacifica would have to move first. Their foreheads were an inch apart, and her eyes were crinkled at the corners when she grinned.

“Your skin is really pale.”

“Your observations are astute as always,” Dipper answered, smiling slightly.

She made a sound of agreement. That was all the warning he got before her hands were on his face and she was kissing him, and he swept her closer with a hand around her waist while the other reached up to press against the space between her shoulder blades. When she ran her tongue over his lips he didn’t hesitate, and he was startled with how quickly _kissing_ could become _making out_ , and how unreal it was that she was actually doing this and that he was actually enjoying it.

And then Mabel’s scream echoed through his inner ear, and he pulled back with a startled gasp.

Dipper very quickly learned that she had been trying to contact him and it was only now that the undetectable block on their mental link had lifted, and suddenly he was on his back and couldn’t quite breathe right and Pacifica was hovering above him, her lips moving but no sound reaching his ears.

“Will,” he managed in a hoarse gasp, clenching his eyes shut when Mabel screamed again – and Pacifica’s eyes hardened and her cell phone slipped into her hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of this is culminating to Pacifica and Dipper dancing at the Manor at some point, fear not. Even I think that there is way too much plot and not enough fluffiness right now.


	5. rule number four: gleefuls always find solutions to their problems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will gets a little too excited. No one is happy about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings this time around. I think. I may have gotten a bit lazy.

Mabel was not so completely incoherent that she couldn’t process her situation, but it was a near thing. Her mind felt like it was on fire, Will was close somewhere behind her, her nerves hardly obeyed the commands she sent to her legs to _run, run_ , she had to get somewhere safe, she had to find Dipper, trees whipped past her and she was in a familiar stretch of woods (was she? She could barely tell), run, _run_ –

“This way!”

... She had to be dreaming.

“For cryin’ out loud – you chase me all the time, what’s the big hold-up?!”

“Gideon,” she managed, her breath coming out in puffs. He was keeping pace beside her, which probably meant she was not running nearly as fast as she thought she was.

“Yes! God, just my luck you’re gettin’ cold feet _now_ of all times. C’mon!”

She could barely shift her gaze upward, but it didn’t matter in the end. He grabbed her wrist and near-about dragged her along, she couldn’t even focus on his skin against hers, and it quickly became apparent where they were going.

“Unicorn hair,” she said; asked, really.

“I’m not incompetent,” Gideon barked, and then he dragged her across the threshold and suddenly Mabel could breathe again, and the note of panic that had been trilling in the back of her mind – and probably Dipper’s, _shit,_ she hadn’t meant to do that – quietened as Will’s fire vanished.

She cast her eyes up, finally. _MYSTERY SHACK_ glared back at her in bold, red letters. The place was quiet, and when she turned, she could see that Will was floating just outside of the hardly-visible barrier, poking at it with a hand and otherwise remaining silent.

“Why?” she asked, her voice a croak more than anything else. Gideon released her wrist and took a step back when cyan blue glowed around her fingers. “How did you – why did you wait so long?”

Will, instead of answering, laughed straight in her face. She burned and she held up both middle fingers, knowing she wouldn’t get an answer, and then she reached out and looked for Dipper, feeling along the fragile, damaged channel between them. She only had to go halfway; Dipper was looking as well, and as soon as he chanced upon her presence he seized it, tying the link between them ever stronger as he asked urgently, _Did Gideon find you?_

_Yes. I’m safe, for now. Will’s floating around – Dipper, what’s going on?_

_I promise I will tell you soon._ The dark secret in his mind remained hidden to her, but she knew what he meant. _I am at the Manor, currently, securing the Journals. I will be there shortly._

_How did –_

Dipper had clearly anticipated her question because he wasted no time jumping in to answer. _Pacifica called Gideon. I gave him directions, and I believe it is only because I begged that he helped you at all._

 _You_ begged.

_Yes._

_You did not._

_I did. Of course I did. I would do anything for you._

Despite the situation, warmth bloomed in her chest. _Sap._

 _I love you too, sister mine._ She could just hear the buzz of conversation in her brother’s ears, and then he said, _I will be there soon. Tell Gideon I have kept my end of the bargain_.

 _Dare I ask?_ Mabel said, as she turned to the boy beside her and said, “Dipper says he’s keeping his part of the bargain, whatever that means.”

“That’s real nice and all, but maybe you can stop glowing menacingly in my direction?”

“Ah,” she said, looking down at her hands briefly and then looking up at where Will – had been. The dream demon was nowhere in sight, and with a slow exhale she let her magic dissipate. “Sorry. I’m...”

Furious? Nervous? Scared? Wanted her brother? Wanted answers? _Yes_ , she decided, and she folded her hands behind her back and straightened her shoulders, aiming to keep careful watch for Dipper when he arrived. His thoughts were still mingling with her own, flashing her images of Pacifica (of course) and of the area he was in, and he acknowledged her warning about Will with the mental equivalent of a nod.

“... What was the bargain?” she asked, rather than finishing her sentence.

“The Journals,” Gideon answered. He sounded resigned. “I’m beginning to question the wisdom of that request, though.”

“Oh.”

And that was it, really. Of course he’d want to see the Journals; he’d want to meet the Author, too, but it was a shame that in taking the books, he ensured he never would. Mabel let a bitter smile grace her lips. Dipper was still at least ten minutes away, and though the chains still connected her to him, the wards Gideon had set up around the Mystery Shack kept her from keeping tabs on Will’s location.

“Gideon, may I ask you something?”

“Within reason,” the boy said promptly. His face was scrunched up and red, and Mabel reflected on how adorable he was, not for the first time.

“Do you know how to perform an exorcism?”

Whatever he had been expecting, it hadn’t been that. Mabel could tell by the expression on his face and the way his steam of consciousness raced behind the flimsy mental blocks he’d set up. He detected her probing a moment later and threw up a few more walls, but he didn’t seem irritated as he stared up at her.

“In theory,” he said, “Not in practice. You planning something?”

She looked outward again. Behind her, she could hear Bud Pines singing quietly to himself and the page flip of Robbie Valentino’s book. Cicadas buzzed, and her magic hummed underneath her skin. The place was deserted, and she idly wondered why.

“Maybe,” she said.

Gideon let it go.

* * *

It was one thing to hear his sister was safe. It was quite another to turn the corner and see her waiting, to see the way her face lit up upon seeing him, to feel the smile pull at his lips as he sped up the pace, Pacifica laughing quietly as she quickly started jogging to keep up. Crossing the wards felt like a bucket of ice had been dumped on his head, but the feeling was forgotten when Mabel pressed close, arms wrapped tightly around him as he buried his face in her hair. Their thoughts were garbled but together spelled out the same things: _I’m so glad you’re safe. I’m so sorry I left you alone. I love you more than anything._

“Here,” he heard Pacifica said, followed shortly thereafter by Gideon’s gasp. “The other Journals. Dipper had to knock out his old man for the last one, so I hope it was worth it.”

 _Wh – how?_ Mabel thought, concern and incredulousness mixed in her voice.

 _Candlestick_ , Dipper answered, and her shoulders shook with laughter even as worry stabbed in his mind, and he promised, _He will wake up with a bump, nothing more._

_Not even a concussion?_

_I am not that strong, Mabel._

Gideon made a high-pitched noise of excitement as he flipped through the pages. Pacifica called after him when rapid footsteps on creaky wood echoed in their ears, and then she too went onto the porch. Unlike her cousin, however, she waited for both of them, and when they finally separated, Dipper only wished she could feel how grateful he was.

“Thank you,” Mabel said to Pacifica, eyes down. Her grasp on his hand was vice-like, but he didn’t care. “You didn’t have to do this. Especially since you know what... happens in the dark.”

“That’s a poetic way of putting it,” Pacifica said with a small smile. Her eyes shifted to Dipper. “Have you told her what you need to do?”

Mabel turned to him, eyes steady. She’d known about the secret for a while now, and even though he promised, he felt nerves nibbling away at his courage. Still, in the end he didn’t need words at all, as he instead presented her with his left hand, the one she wasn’t holding.

“Dipper,” Mabel whispered, horrified, and she released his other hand to trace the triangle seared into his palm.

“I am sorry.”

“ _Dipper_.”

“I know.”

Mabel let out a small, sad noise, once, and Dipper explained, _I have to break the chains or we’ll never be able to leave here._

 _But_ why _? Why make the deal at all?_

 _He threatened to hurt you._ He inclined his head towards Pacifica. _And her. But mostly you._

“You’re an idiot for not telling me,” she said, more resigned than angry. “We could’ve come up with something.”

“We know that this has been coming for a long time, sister.” He pressed his forehead to hers, eyes half-lidded. _He used Pacifica as a catalyst._

“We could starve him out – he can’t survive without blood – ”

“Dare we risk it? He may hurt townsfolk if we do not act. He is not incapable of killing.”

 _We should_ try, Mabel insisted. _We can’t – there has to be another way –_

_I made a deal. There’s no turning back._

Mabel’s eyes flew wide open and she pulled back, turning her back on him to scream in the general direction of the woods. It was a frustrated sound, again, not an angry one, and Dipper rested his arms around her waist and pressed his cheek against one of her ears, keeping his thoughts quiet and reassuring. He could feel Pacifica’s eyes on him as Mabel’s voice slowly gave out, and by the time she was done, the silence was absolute and oppressing and she was breathing hard.

“You are such a dumbass,” Mabel spat out. Her voice was hoarse and rough around the edges.

“That was never in question,” Dipper said, feeling hollow.

_It’s all her fault._

_That was never in question, either_.

But Mabel didn’t blame Pacifica, not truly at least. Dipper released her and she turned to slip under one of his arms, folding her own tightly across her chest, and he finally looked up to meet Pacifica’s gaze. “Our apologies,” he said in a low voice. “And thank you. For everything.”

“Save it for when everything actually works out,” Pacifica answered, and _god_ he did not deserve this girl. Robbie was peering at them through one of the windows, but when Pacifica opened the door and gestured them in, he disappeared from view. “Come in, I guess. It’s not your Manor, but... it should be comfortable enough.”

* * *

It was clear from the way the twins stood stiffly at the door that they did not expect a warm welcome. Pacifica had asked Gideon to brief their uncle Bud on the situation, but she was pretty sure he hadn’t when the man himself turned the corner, smiling for who he thought were customers for about two seconds before it dropped off of his face as quick as can be.

“Pacifica,” he said, her name a warning and a question all at once.

“They’re only going to be here for like an hour or two, tops,” Pacifica promised, speaking quickly and glancing over at them. Dipper and Mabel both looked directly at her the moment she did, which was eerie but not all that surprising, and then there was a distinct thought that definitely wasn’t hers: _we might need more time_ , like when Dipper had asked her not to speak in the Manor’s garden. “Maybe three or four.”

Bud scrutinized them. The twins kept their gazes respectfully averted and they certainly looked less intimidating when they weren’t dressed in show clothes – Mabel in particular had a periwinkle dress with black leggings, hair shoved into a messy ponytail, and Dipper’s hoodie scrunched at his shoulders, and they looked more like bedraggled college students than anything else. Their gems were nowhere in sight.

“They stay in the store,” he said at last. Robbie let out a nervous titter, but everyone ignored him; this was a battle of wills between Pacifica and her uncle. “Nowhere else.”

“Gotcha,” Pacifica said with a firm nod. Mabel murmured assent when she cast a glance back at the two.

“And you stay with them the entire time.”

Hm. She didn’t want Robbie to get too involved with this, and he apparently felt the same because he was catching her eye and making some vague gestures to the door. If he left, though, he might be put into danger, so instead she sighed, shook her head, and said, “Yeah, okay, uncle Bud.”

“Don’t give me that. This is serious. You promise?”

“Yes, uncle Bud, I promise.” Her uncle gave her one final look before nodding and finally turning to leave, and then she said to Robbie, “You probably should stay inside the Shack, but maybe not in here?”

“Yeah, I’m down,” Robbie said, scooping up his book and tucking it under his arm. He didn’t spare any of them a second glance before he was pelting it out of the gift shop, almost crashing into the doorframe before he skidded around it and entered the living room instead. Pacifica wished she could do the same thing as she turned to the twins, planning to drag some stools over so they could sit – but instead she found them already seated on the floor, their eyes bright and glowing as they seemed to stare at nothing at all.

She coughed into her fist. This got only Dipper’s attention, and he murmured something indistinct before saying more clearly, “We are blocking the door, are we not? Apologies. We will move.”

“No, I mean, yes, but I mean – do you guys need, uh, anything? Like, to do whatever it is you need to do,” she said, watching as Dipper stood up and gently pulled Mabel to her feet. The girl seemed entirely unaware of her surroundings and she let herself be tugged around without resistance.

“Time, I think,” Dipper replied, situating Mabel along a wall and gently dragging her down so she was seated on the floor. He turned his head slightly to meet her eyes, smiling when she walked closer. “Which you have already given us. We are very grateful for this, Pacifica. Thank you.”

“G did the wards, not me,” Pacifica deflected, and, feeling just a bit bold, she reached out and tucked her fingers in his. “Will you guys be okay?”

“That remains to be seen, unfortunately. It helps that we are in protection of the barrier - it should prevent most of the magical backlash when Mabel breaks the chains. For the moment, we are fine.” His voice was soft. “Either way, we are not the kind of people you should worry about.”

“Yeah.” She squeezed his hand. “I know.”

“And yet here we are.” He brought her hand to his lips before he pulled away to seat himself next to his twin. His smile, at least, was genuine when he looked up at her. “Thank you for that as well. With any luck, this will be relatively painless – ”

A hiss escaped from Mabel’s lips. Dipper sighed.

“This will take some time,” he said again, settling back against the wall. His eyes drifted shut. “If you have anything about exorcising demons in your Journal, it would likely be beneficial for you to know.” One eye opened again. “I will speak with you later?”

She chuckled at that. The expression on his face was a mix between hopeful and nervous, if she ignored the underlying fear in the air.

“Of course,” she said, flicking his forehead with a grin. “Go to sleep or whatever.”

“Your wish is my command,” he responded with a slight smile, single eye closing again, and pretty soon his breathing evened out.

She watched them both breathe for a few moments before shaking herself out of it, going to drag out Robbie’s stool from behind the counter and settling herself onto it, flipping her phone into her hand. This was probably going to be a long wait.

* * *

Mabel had always prided herself on the orderliness in her mind. Dipper liked to say it made up for her chaotic and haphazard behavior, which might have had more truth that she would have thought – after all, Dipper’s mindscape was a mess of looping staircases and never-ending hallways and doors shoved onto the floors and ceilings and walls. Hers was neat lines and neater squares and neatly labelled doors, and the section devoted to Will, a rather large part of her life at this point, was thusly easy to find.

A knock resounded from all sides, seemingly; she already knew who it was, and between one blink and the next, Dipper stood next to her, decked in show clothes with his hands folded behind his back, cape gently flowing in a nonexistent wind, surveying the same door as her.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“No,” she said, reaching out a hand to the door in any case. It was an imperious mahogany, the wood dark and rich, with gleaming blue handles that matched Will’s color exactly, but she didn’t hesitate as she pushed it open, revealing only darkness and a bright, glittering cyan inside. She stooped down and brought the chain into one hand, the links clinking as she absently flipped it from finger to finger.

“How were you planning to do this otherwise?” Mabel asked without looking at her twin.

“I would have waited until you were asleep, taken your gem, and used it with my own to force my way through,” Dipper answered promptly. He added a bit unnecessarily, “It would have hurt tremendously, but I could think of no better way.”

“Not even to tell me.”

“It did not seem wise at the time.”

She wasn’t going to lie: it hurt that Dipper had though he couldn’t trust her, even if his reasoning was sound. They were twins and they always did things together – if he had just _told_ her, they could’ve worked something out. She could understand that he had been under something of a time constraint of about five seconds when he had made the deal, but _still_.

“I’m not going to forgive you for this for a while.”

“I am aware. Of all of my shortcomings and mistakes, this one is very high up.” When she looked over at him, he flashed her a small smile and stepped up so his hand cover hover over hers. “At the very least, we will not have to kill any more people, yes?”

“Boo,” she said with a pout. “Where else will we get the stuff we need for spells?”

“Quite honestly, I am happy with my powers as they stand. I will make do without the black magic.”

“Boring,” Mabel said, shaking her head.

“I will stand by any decision you make, sister, whatever it may be.” He inclined his head towards their joined hands. “Shall we?”

“We’ve got no choice, so I guess so,” she said, a little pointedly.

His chuckle was flat. “I deserved that.”

He waited for her to start pulsing her magic into the chain before adding his own to the mix, and she was in charge of shaping their combined powers into what she needed. She had no idea what to call this – it wasn’t scientific, purely magic and magic theory – but in the end it hardly mattered; the first link snapped in her hand, letting out a small puff of residue cyan before crumbling away to ash, and soon the rest of the links followed, snapping and exploding on and on until she could barely see or hear them anymore.

Dipper took her elbow and gently pulled her out of the doorway, and she took one door, he took the other, and they shut them both at the same time. As soon as they had, Mabel snapped her fingers and cyan fire licked at the door’s base, and another few moments and it was gone.

This was the easy part. She took a breath and squared her shoulders, and beside her, Dipper idly reached up to smooth a fold in his shirt as they turned around. There were many doors and many paths, and it was time to single out any road that could possibly link her to Will and destroy them. Later, they would do the same for Dipper.

“After you,” he said presently, and Mabel let out a silent sigh and took the lead.

* * *

Cleaning out the mindscape generally took an exorbitant amount of time, and this occasion was no different. By the time Dipper opened his eyes, there was a crick in his neck and his legs were sore from being folded underneath him. Further beyond, Pacifica was lying on her back on the gift shop’s counter, holding her phone above her head, and Mabel was stirring beside him, her hand closing around his. There was a sunset in the window; it had been at least four hours, if not more.

He felt drained more than anything else. Clear-headed, but drained; the overuse of magic was definitely taking its toll, but with any luck, Will was long gone and uncle Stan would cancel the show for the evening. Even if their uncle didn’t know the whole extent of the demon business, he’d get it if Dipper gave him a general gist of what happened. He’d probably be happy, actually, to know his kids weren’t messing around with things they should not even try to understand.

“How’d it go?” Pacifica asked, and he hadn’t even noticed her jump off of the counter and trot over to them. Currently she was crouched in front of him, and Mabel sat up, the hand not holding his going up to rub at her eyes.

“With any luck, we should be fine.” He felt loopy and he sounded it, and after a moment he reached up to rest his forehead against a palm.

“Will’s free?”

“Yes,” Mabel said, faster than he could. She looked far worse for wear when her hands pulled away from her face, eyes dimmed and dark shadows underneath. No surprise; she’d used a lot more magic than he had.

“So… that’s it, then.”

“With any luck,” Dipper repeated. He briefly considered getting to his feet and decided against it; the floor was rather comfortable, and Mabel grumbled and flopped down, nestling her face against one of his thighs as she curled up again. “How long before we are kicked out?”

“Dunno. G hasn’t come downstairs, Robbie’s still hiding out in the living room, and uncle Bud’s gone somewhere. I think you’re safe for now.”

“Dipper, your leg’s too bony,” Mabel growled, eyes still shut tightly.

“I apologize that I am not an adequate pillow.” He reached up to cover a yawn. “Shall we return to the Manor?”

“Tempting,” Mabel muttered, “But that’s too far.”

Pacifica had been watching their interaction in silence, but now she merely tilted her head and said, “I can grab you a pillow if you want, Mabel. And maybe some blankets.”

“Don’t bother,” Mabel said. “You’ve already been far too generous. I hate owing debts.” She pulled herself up with a brief flash of cyan, though Dipper could see that only served her to tire her out more. “Bluh. Dipper, can you call the car?”

“We have not had a butler for two years, if you will recall. Because of - ”

“Oh yeah,” Mabel said, and then she laughed. “Yep, that had been my fault, I remember now. Wow, I’m out of it. Okay. Maybe a walk will wake me up a bit.”

“I’ll come with you,” Pacifica said, standing up. She offered both of them a hand, which Mabel refused and Dipper took without hesitation, but once they were on their feet, she smiled at him and let go. “I’ll grab G just in case. You never know.”

“I am sure we – ”

“Do it,” Mabel interrupted, and when Dipper glanced over at her, she sent back a jumbled collection of ideas that basically summed up to _I want to talk to him_. He conceded with a nod, and after one last lingering glance Pacifica darted out of the room, bracelets jangling as she went.

“What about?” Dipper asked in a low voice, because communicating via mental link was easy but did consume the tiniest portion of power – something he was not willing to spare at the moment.

“Apologizing,” Mabel answered, and Dipper respected his sister enough not to pry.

They did not have to wait very long, as it stood – Pacifica was back downstairs soon after with a grappling hook gun and Gideon with the three Journals in tow, and Dipper’s brief flare of jealousy and envy upon seeing the three books was quickly overcome with a sense of contentment when Pacifica’s hand found his again. Even Gideon’s glare didn’t dampen his mood, and it was somewhat hilarious because if someone had told him this was what would happen to his life a week ago, he would have laughed them out of the room.

The walk out of the Shack was uneventful. Passing through the barrier wasn’t nearly as strange as it had been going in – like a chill up his spine, not a bucket of ice dumped on his head. That was promising, right? Mabel peeled off with Gideon to talk further ahead, and Pacifica was humming under her breath as they tread behind, sunlight dappling through the leaves of the forest. It was a perfect evening, and he leaned over to press his lips against Pacifica's temples and she laughed, bumping her shoulder against his arm, and -

His pessimist radar began to go off; something was going to go wrong. This had been too _easy_. Will wouldn’t have left without saying something to him, Dipper was almost positive, and then –

And then they got to town and it was deserted. No one in the stores, no one in the streets, quiet as a tomb. “Shit,” Mabel said, breaking the silence, “Isn’t that Wendy Corduroy over there?”

Dipper looked. It was her. She was a slate gray color, motionless and still, eyes wide and unseeing; but it was definitely her. Or at least a sculpture of her, which would be entirely too convenient, Dipper knew.

“Well, that’s promising,” Pacifica said wryly. 

“Gotta love Gravity Falls,” Gideon agreed, clutching the second Journal to his chest. “Wonder what’s happenin’ now?”

“I do not know,” Dipper said, “But at a guess – ”

A voice roared through the nothingness, all-encompassing and vibrating in his ears. “ _Mabel Gleeful!_ ”

“ – Will Cipher had something to do with it,” Dipper concluded, and he shoved his free hand into his pocket to grab his gem without quite thinking of what to do.

* * *

Pacifica tightened her grip on Dipper’s hand reflexively and discovered, a moment later, that Dipper could tie his tie one-handed. It wasn’t a professional job by any means, but in just a few seconds there was a haphazard bow resting on his hoodie, the gem flaring bright cyan as he threw a hand out and blew the rapidly-advancing Will back a few feet.

“What – ” she began, only to fall silent when Dipper tossed out another bit of magic to shove Will back further. She found her voice a moment later and said, “Shouldn’t he be gone?”

“Yes,” Dipper said quietly. “Gideon, my sister asked you about exorcisms? Do you – ”

“There’s a lot.” Gideon’s voice was hushed, and for once he didn’t sound confrontational. “But I've got nothing concrete yet. No way to get it all together.”

Dipper nodded and called, “Mabel,” and his sister had already squared herself into position further ahead. There was a very real knife in her hands, shimmering faintly rainbow like oil in a puddle, and Pacifica let go of Dipper’s fingers as he strode forward to stand beside her. She was crouched and angry and snarling; he was tall and prideful and quiet.

Pacifica had a grappling hook gun, and Gideon had been researching exorcisms, apparently, for the past hours in the Shack. They weren’t unarmed, but they certainly weren’t about to do anything substantial as Will righted himself in the air and stared down at the twins.

“Is that the best you can do?” the demon said, and it was so uncharacteristically confident that Pacifica reached for her gun without even thinking about it. Its weight in her hand didn’t make her feel any better as Will laughed and said, “Pathetic.”

“I am glad you find us amusing,” Dipper said, and then he held up his hand – the one that had been marked – and said, “However, you are breaking your end of the deal.”

“You said leave _here_ , back at your precious gardens,” Will corrected. He looked smug, if that was possible for a triangle. “You have to be specific if you don’t want loopholes.”

Mabel and Dipper looked at each other, and though no words were spoken, it was easy to read the situation: both were exhausted and relatively unequipped to deal with a demon. But then again –

“He can’t harm us with his powers,” Pacifica realized, slowly letting the tension bleed from her shoulders. Beside her, Gideon was muttering to himself as he flipped through one of the Journals. “Right, Will?”

“Unfortunately,” Will said, and at the flare of yellow fire around his hands Mabel immediately lifted her knife. When nothing happened, she slowly lowered it again, and Will said, “That part of the deal was a bit too specific for my liking, but I was desperate.”

“So why are you here, then?” Pacifica asked. A moment later, she said, “Wait, no, obviously you’re here for Mabel.”

“Huh, I wonder what made it obvious. Was it the way I yelled her name when I got here?”

She shivered. Dipper was watching her carefully while Mabel kept her attention ahead, and somehow she knew that both twins were looking at her. “But if you can’t hurt us, then... what were you planning on doing?”

Two seconds passed.

“ _Fuck you!_ ” Dipper spat without warning, and Pacifica realized a moment later that Mabel was letting out an almost inaudible hiss through gritted teeth.

“I’ve never understood why you’re nice to that thing,” Will taunted, and Mabel’s shoulders twitched in – recognition? Fury? “She’ll be bound to me indefinitely. What’s the point?”

“ _Do not touch her._ ”

“Oh?”

Another two seconds. Then Pacifica felt icy tendrils drip into her mind, and she barely registered her grappling hook falling from her suddenly-lifeless fingers. Beside her, Gideon made a choked sound.

“Then how about I take her instead?”

* * *

This was the opposite of what they wanted.

Mabel grabbed Dipper’s hand, stared him square in the eye, and said, “Are you ready?”

“Not in the slightest,” he said, understanding her meaning right away –

and their minds raced to pour all of the love and affection they had for each other, one last time, one last time, arms tight around each other’s shoulders, one last time –

then they turned on their heels, his left hand clenching her right, and raised their joined fingers, cyan flaring out wildly, unpredictably, and the glow brightened and brightened and Dipper let his eyes slide closed, let his legs float off the ground, let his lungs forget how

to

 _breathe_.

“ _Dipper!_ ” someone yelled, and Mabel laughed when she saw his smile.

* * *

The twins floated at least ten feet off of the ground, their eyes closed, and their entire bodies emitted light – the gems were a channel for their magic, not a source, and Will faced them and screamed as cyan flashed through the air and into him, driving, digging, merciless, unending.

“Will it be enough?” she whispered, fear freezing her in place. Dipper and Mabel were only silhouettes in their sun. Her mind felt raw and cold and she wasn’t ready for any of this.

Gideon had all three Journals spread before him on the ground now. Across each page were varying explanations of demons and what to do when encountered. “I don’t know,” he said, voice soft.

Pacifica reached out to put a hand around his shoulders, and neither of them said anything at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe I once thought this would be a oneshot.


	6. rule number five: gleefuls destroy anyone who would stand in their way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Siblings get separated. There might be a problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is blood in this chapter! Read to the line [the realization dawned on them both a moment later] and skip to the next section if you're squeamish. There should be enough context for you to get what's still going on, but you'll miss some details if you do - and there will be repeated mentions of the blood for the rest of the chapter.

Will’s mind was eerily quiet. The mindscape stretched on and on and on, and there were doors everywhere, and Dipper’s hand was cold in hers, and she was shaking and her heart was lodged in her throat and it was hard to breathe.

When was the last time she was scared?

“You’re both fools, Gleefuls!” Will taunted, and his voice was disembodied and echoed in the empty space and Mabel _shuddered_ as Will went on, “You’re in _my_ playground now! You’ll never get out of here!”

Was she breathing? It was ragged, and that’s when she noticed Dipper wasn’t. His chest was still and unmoving but his eyes were sharp as they flickered from door to endless door, and of course he’d be better at this, he was the telepath and she did the telekinetic stuff, she couldn’t do this, _she_ _couldn’t do this_ –

“Courage, sister,” Dipper said softly, even though he was just as afraid as she was. Their minds were open to only each other and spilled feelings and images like waterfalls, because this was a venture neither of them might come back from.

“Courage,” she whispered back, squeezing his hand, and when Dipper began to walk, his hand in hers, she walked with him. _Shoulders back. Head high_.

“Demon children, they called you,” Will intoned, followed by a snicker. Dipper’s expression didn’t change, but his emotions spiked with anger sharpened by betrayal. Mabel gritted her teeth. “Ten years old and you were dropped at your great-uncle’s doorstep. Not even proper Gleefuls, either of you!”

 _Such as it is, when your powers cut your parents into slivers_ , Mabel thought. Dipper seemed wistful and sad, if only for a moment filled with longing, and that wouldn’t do.

“If you fill your head with dreams,” Mabel whispered, remembering words from a long time ago, “There’s no room for knowledge.”

Her brother didn’t answer right away – but then he whispered back, “Knowledge is power,” and though his expression looked nothing like hers it was just as fierce in some way. “We can do this.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“That’s adorable! If you hadn’t tricked me and left me to rot with you two human _children_ , we could’ve been really good friends.”

“We _were_ friends,” Dipper said, his voice louder. Clearer.

“You hurt me, I hurt you! That’s the rule, Pine Tree.”

“You hurt innocents,” Mabel snarled, confidence coming back in short, quick bursts.

“So did you, Shooting Star.”

“Not like you do.”

“Oh, no, I don’t think so. You dragged it out! You watched them hurt. You loved every minute of it. I end it quickly.”

“You turned them into _stone_ ,” Mabel hissed.

“And they aren’t conscious.”

“You want to kill us, not them,” Dipper said. “You should have left well enough alone.”

“I don’t want to kill _you_ , Dipper, just your sister. What are you going to do about it?”

A wave of furious protectiveness washed over her mind from her brother’s, and she felt warm. Her twin was right: together, they could do this.

They stopped at a door. Mabel held a hand out and placed her palm flat on the wood; Dipper did the same. Their powers were weakened here but came when they beckoned, and together they let their magic seep inside, looking, searching, finding –

“No,” Mabel said, and Dipper nodded in agreement, and their cyan powers returned to them and Dipper cast his out in front of them. They had a sense of Will’s magical residue now, and they could track it, and it led them in all directions but Dipper picked the path with the most golden hue and Mabel followed him. They could do this. They _could_ do this.

“You’ll never find me here!” Will cackled. “Two children who think they know better than me? You haven’t even been alive for two decades!”

 _How will we get out?_ Mabel asked, knowing that for absolute privacy they had to remain in their own heads.

 _I don’t know_ , Dipper said, and he never used contractions and Mabel looked at him, concerned. _We have to protect them._

 _I know,_ Mabel said. _He’s out there. And so is she. For them. But..._

 _I should like to see her again,_ Dipper agreed. _Still. One step at a time._

She breathed in, remembered she didn’t need to, breathed out again. Will’s trail was glittering gold, floating off hazily in the white mindscape, when Mabel briefly glanced through Dipper’s eyes and tugged her brother’s hand to lead him down a trail anew. Forward. No looking back.

“You’re already lost! Which door did you come through? Aha ha ha!”

_He’s moving. How can we confront him? How can we find him?_

_Can you float yourself up?_

_I’m not leaving you,_ Mabel thought fiercely.

_Your telekinesis is better than mine, and I am busy tracking him._

_The moment we’re separated, he wins. Our powers are stronger when we’re together, and we’re already exhausted._

Dipper was silent for a moment. _There must be a way to trick him_ , he thought at last. _We have done it once, so we can do it again._

_He hates blood._

_He requires blood to live._

_But he hates blood. And violence. That’s why he turned the people to stone, so he wouldn’t hurt them and make them bleed._

_He is weak-minded_ , Dipper thought, with the air of someone who just remembered something they’d long forgotten.

 _Unlike us._ Images of dead bodies flashed through Mabel’s mind. _We can break him._

 _A discarded toy_ , Dipper mused; _we do not need him anymore. But how –_

The realization dawned on them both a moment later. Dipper rolled up his sleeve; Mabel’s hand went to her waist, and even though this was Will’s mindscape and that was why neither of them could imagine up a convenient way to find him, Mabel’s fingers closed around the hilt of her favorite knife.

“I will not bleed out,” Dipper said when he saw Mabel’s hesitation.

“Are you sure?”

“No,” he said, painfully neutral, “But I trust you, sister mine.”

She swallowed. “And I you, brother dear.” She flipped her knife in her hand, caught it by the flat of the blade, and handed it to him hilt first. “You aren’t the one he’s after.”

“All the more reason for you to do it,” Dipper said, and he did not reach out for the weapon.

“No,” Mabel said with a shake of her head. “This is my mistake. I need to own up to it.”

“Mabel, please,” he said, and his voice was strained and trembling, just a bit.

She grabbed his hand and pressed the knife into it – and after a few moments, his fingers curled around the hilt, she let go, and he lowered his sleeve while she pushed hers up, biting her lip in preparation.

“What are you doing?” Will wondered, and Mabel growled outright at that.

Her blade effortlessly slit her forearm, just barely missing the vein as he sliced carefully parallel to the bone. Dipper let out the tiniest sound of discomfort and Mabel shut her eyes tight, but it was Will who shrieked again the moment a drop of crimson dripped onto the white, featureless floor: “ _What are you doing?_ ”

* * *

The next thing Dipper knew, he was thrown to the ground hard enough that something in his chest cracked, and he was gasping for breath as he painfully rolled himself over to see Will gone and Mabel floating to the ground.

“Oh no,” he breathed, horror freezing his limbs in place when his sister looked up.

Her eyes were light blue and her pupils were straight lines.

* * *

Dipper staggered to his feet, one arm clutched around his ribs, and he took an unsteady step back – and Pacifica didn’t know she was moving until Gideon shouted at her not to, _for cryin’ out loud, what does it take to make you realize when and when not to get involved?_ She could still hear her cousin follow her in the sudden silence, as magic dissipated and Mabel touched down lightly on the dirt.

“P-Pacifica?” Dipper mumbled, when he teetered to the side and she caught him before he fell.

“Yep, that’s my name,” she answered in a low voice, staring at Mabel. She appeared to be examining her limbs, holding a hand out to look over the nails and skin. “What’s wrong with Mabel?”

“That... is not Mabel,” Dipper muttered, and he choked on nothing at all when Pacifica gingerly put one of his arms around her shoulders, and then she saw -

“Oh my god, Dipper, you’re bleeding!”

“I – ” and then he looked down and held his left arm out, as if seeing it for the first time. The sleeve of his hoodie was torn and there was a neat, straight slice of red running down the forearm, and his eyes widened fractionally as he breathed, “Will,” nodding his head upwards just a fraction, ignoring her concern entirely. His cyan eyes glowed.

“That’s _Will_?” Gideon said. He’d picked up all of the Journals save for his, the others safely tucked away into his bag. “No way. Since when was a crybaby like him able to possess people?”

There was a solid-sounding _crack_ , followed by an agonized hiss leaking from between gritted teeth, and then Dipper breathed a quiet sigh of relief and straightened. His hoodie shredded itself at its base with a glow of cyan, a long strip of black fabric that he wrapped around his bleeding forearm, his eyes dimming to their normal hue as he explained quietly, “Demonic possession. We were not careful enough.”

He hadn’t looked away from his sister once, Pacifica noticed, even though he slipped an arm around her waist, even as he had snapped his own broken rib back into place _with his magic_. Holy god. How extensive were the twins’ abilities, and where had Dipper gotten such a high pain tolerance?

“Neither of you should be here,” he said presently, and his breathing was ragged but steady, and when he wiped his forehead the blood smeared the constellation red. His expression was pinched and furious, but quietly; rage burned cold and sharp in his cyan eyes. “It is not safe, and this is our – _my_ mess to clean up.”

“Yeah, it was bound to blow up in your face,” Gideon agreed airily, entirely inappropriate considering the danger they were in.

“G, not the time,” Pacifica said, swatting her cousin’s head before poking at Dipper. “Also not the time for freaking out. What’s the plan?”

“You should leave,” Dipper said, and when he tensed, Pacifica whipped her head around to see Mabel throw a knife, cyan surrounding the blade. He held up a hand and the knife redirected ever-so-slightly to fly past them and beyond, thankfully out of Mabel’s telekinetic reach - it hadn't been aiming for him, had it been going for her? For Gideon? - and for the first time she could see beads of sweat forming on Dipper’s forehead. Combined with the blood, it was not a good look. “This is not a battle to be won without powers such as ours.”

“Can you kick Will out somehow?” Pacifica asked.

“Exorcisms have been performed for centuries,” Gideon said, and he resumed flipping through the Journal. “But there’s not enough time to look through all of the – ”

“I have our Journals memorized,” Dipper said, which surprised exactly no one. He deflected another knife and started taking steps back, taking Pacifica and by extension Gideon with him, as Mabel/Will was advancing slowly but surely. “If you know of something from yours, I will try to recite what is relevant when prompted.”

“You guys are so freaking weird,” Gideon muttered.

“I do not like you much either, but I will do anything for you if you free my sister,” Dipper said without missing a beat. Another knife went careening and landed blade-first into a tree, and sweat mixed with blood dripped down his temple to his cheek. His arm had tightened around Pacifica’s waist; she was pretty sure she was the only thing holding him up.

“Anything.”

“Yes.” There was no hesitation, and another knife was deflected, barely. It whizzed close enough to Pacifica’s ear that she could hear the _shing_ as it went by. “Apologies, Pacifica.”

“You’re good,” Pacifica said steadily, because there were two people who were about to either go at each other’s throats or have a meltdown and she needed to remain calm. (Inwardly, she was screaming. Loudly. She hoped Dipper couldn’t hear.) “You found anything at all, G?”

“You’d do _anything_?”

“Yes. I cannot do this forever and _we will die_ unless you do something.” This time there were droplets of blood flying from his hand when Dipper whipped it up and tossed a knife to the side. His breaths came out in strained hisses. “She still has eleven more blades and you are not helping.”

 _What does one do with fifteen knives?_ Pacifica wondered as she heard flipping pages and Mabel threw another knife, eyes wide and lips set in an eerie half-moon smile. They had finally backed up into the nearby grove of trees, and Dipper shoved first Pacifica and then Gideon behind a trunk. He ducked around another and said, “We must keep moving to stay out of Mabel’s range. It would be child’s play to curve a blade around a tree if she was close enough.”

“Introspective thought purge,” Gideon said suddenly as they began to run, eyes down on his journal. Knives occasionally embedded themselves in bushes or trunks, but they always missed either her or Gideon by a hair and Dipper kept a hand outstretched, blue glowing around his fingers.

“Direct intervention in a mind; forcing oneself into one’s own mind completely for the purpose of removing outside influences and that is not useful in this context because she is the one who is possessed _next_.”

“Could you drive Will out of her mind, Gleeful? That’s the question!”

“Not without removing Mabel as well.”

“You could put her back!”

“An alternative would be preferable.”

“ _It’s our only chance!_ ”

“Dipper,” Pacifica said, hand on his shoulder as they stumbled along. She almost flinched when she realized he was trembling.

“I – I cannot do it, not without her,” Dipper said, though his stride never stuttered even as his speech did. “Our powers are weakened when we are apart. Will knows this, that is why he separated us, I cannot possibly – ”

“Life or death situation, Dipper,” Pacifica said quietly, just barely audible above their pounding footsteps.

Will’s laugh echoed behind them, and he cooed, “You can’t hide from me, Dipper Gleeful! I still want to talk to you!”

“ _Shit_ ,” Dipper said, and now his face was pale and his arm hadn’t stopped bleeding and it was clear his chest was killing him, and he slowed to a walk and then he said, “All right, I will try. If this does not work, it is up to you two. I am sorry.”

“You should be.”

“G, now is really _not the time_. What do we need to do, Dipper?”

“I… I do not know. Do what you think will help.” He turned to her suddenly, and something cool and smooth pressed against her lips before he pulled away. Gideon made a choked sound as Dipper held her eyes for a few moments – and then he turned and began rushing back the way they came.

The knives stopped coming almost immediately. Gideon cautiously took out one of the Journals and flipped quickly to a specific page. He must've found what he was looking for, as a moment later he said, “Ah,” and Pacifica wanted to cry because thank _god_ he finally found something, “I think – hey, Pacifica, you up for a field trip?”

* * *

“Oh, hello, Dipper,” Will/Mabel said, smiling, and her hands lowered with her blades as Dipper stepped out into the open, feeling hot and cold from blood loss and worry and just a tiny bit of panic. “How’re you doing?”

“Not exceptionally,” Dipper answered, carefully probing his own mental barriers. The one he shared with Mabel was shut tightly, had been shut tightly the moment Will had ejected him from his mindscape, and there was a steady pressure against it indicating that Will would attempt to slither in the moment he opened it - not hurt him, per se, but look for something, maybe. Dipper would have to time this perfectly. “Yourself?”

“It’s been so long since I’ve inhabited a body,” Will said with a wide smile. He slid Mabel’s hands into her pockets. “It’s very refreshing.”

Dipper’s arm screamed in agony as he lifted it up to examine his makeshift bandage. There had been enough pressure for it to stop bleeding, as far as he could tell, but the cape's black fabric was fairly wet with blood, and he lowered it again. “In any other circumstance, I would be happy for you.”

“C’mon, Dipper,” Will said, leaning back with a smirk. “You really need this girl to succeed in this world?”

Dipper’s eye twitched. Will was not using his power right now; he was using Mabel’s to keep him cushioned in the air. He was technically within the parameters of the deal, and not for the first time, Dipper berated himself for his mistakes. “She is my twin sister, Will.”

“That’s a good enough reason for you?”

Dipper let out a slow exhale. If Will could see the extent of Mabel’s memories, he would know that that had been a stupid question; _of course it was enough_. Mabel would see the world burn for him, and he would do the same, and the fact that Will seemed ignorant of this told him that Mabel was still there inside, fighting with all she had.

“Look,” Will said after it became apparent Dipper wasn’t going to speak. “You’re tired. Mabel’s tired. Hell, even I’m tired. Why don’t we just sit down and have a nice chat?”

“You are hurting my sister. I am afraid that I cannot negotiate in that regard.”

“Who said she was hurting? She’s perfectly safe.”

“Those words are not synonymous.”

The magic Dipper had been slowly pooling together felt like warmth in his chest. There wasn’t much of his power still available to him, and once it was gone, it would take a long time to regenerate. If this wasn’t timed exactly, or if Will suspected anything, or he somehow missed or something else equally dire...

“Perhaps not, but she’s not dead.” Will/Mabel studied him, pale blue eyes blinking. The pupils expanded like a cat’s when a shadow fell across his sister’s face. “Just hear me out. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

Dipper waited a heartbeat too long before dipping his head into a nod. Will noticed, but that was fine; Dipper knew that a bit of hesitance wouldn’t be uncalled for, and if he could just get Will to –

It hit him suddenly. Will couldn’t use his powers; he was entirely reliant on Mabel’s at the moment, and he likely didn’t know her limits. If Dipper could coerce him into using up all of Mabel’s available magic, then his odds of success were that much higher, provided nothing went wrong. He knew Mabel as a person; he didn’t know Mabel’s magic quite as intimately. If he was mistaken...

Dipper eased himself into a seated position. His broken rib dug into his skin, but he forced it back into place with a skitter of precious magic. He needed a hospital, and his cape didn’t provide much insulation from the branch-littered ground.

“Apologies,” he said, lending just a tinge of weariness to his voice. He didn’t have to fake that, at least. “I am a touch too drained to float.”

Will folded Mabel’s legs underneath him and regarded him from his invisible perch. The gem on her headband glowed gently; faintly, in fact, but Dipper carefully kept his eyes away from it so as to not draw attention.

“I keep forgetting how delicate you meatbags are,” Will chirped, and Dipper looked down at his arm. Not bleeding, pulsing with a steady, slow ache, the blood loss was definitely getting to him, but it wasn’t going to kill him. He’d been careful to avoid the major veins, and the cut itself was very shallow. “Mabel always used her knives so easily I thought she was invincible, but it turns out she’s just very good with them.”

Dipper stared. A moment later it registered that Mabel’s left hand was bleeding, and it took everything in him not to lunge forward and throw every bit of magic he had into Will’s mind; instead he very, _very_ deliberately folded his hands in his lap, maintaining a steely straight posture for his broken rib’s sake, and kept his expression unreadable.

“All right,” he said. “What is it you wanted to discuss?”

* * *

Mabel was grateful for the neatness of her mindscape. All she had to do was stand in front of the long, long hallway that represented her memories and Will couldn’t enter.

He tried – oh yes, he tried, yellow fire trying to flood its way past her, or barrel through and burn her, or flicker at the edge of her vision, attempting to distract her so a bit more could slip past. But Mabel stood firm. She had weaknesses and only Dipper was allowed to know about them, and the less Will knew about her as a person, the better everything else would be.

She could hear Dipper’s voice filtering through her mindscape – not hers, Will’s, she guessed, but his responses were generally specific enough for her to follow the conversation. He would fight for her, and if he knew she was still here, he would never give up.

She trusted him.

She had to.

* * *

“Okay, and in this part of the circle, we need this.”

Gideon pointed. Pacifica glanced at it, looked at the chalk in her hand, and carefully sketched out what she would tentatively label a llama. It was a pretty accurate representation, if she said so herself, and when she pulled back, blowing her hair out of her face, Gideon gave her a thumbs-up.

“Just a few more?” she asked.

“I think so,” Gideon said. He was standing next to her, outside of their giant circle, with all three Journals laid out before him with two lined up next to each other and the other one centered above them. “We’ll need a shooting star over there, and then a pine tree over there, then we should be done. They haven’t moved, have they?”

“No,” Pacifica said, peering through the brush. Dipper was still seated; Mabel was still floating. Whatever they were saying to each other was too quiet to make out from here, and she frowned slightly as she shifted over a few feet. “Haven’t seen us, either.”

“Not yet, anyway,” Gideon muttered, and then he grabbed a Journal and said, “This one here.” She dutifully copied the design into the ground, clearing leaves and twigs away first so she could scrape the chalk against the ground. They went a few more paces and the process was repeated, this time with a pine tree, and she sat back with a quiet exhalation as her cousin said, “Okay, that’s the last of them.”

They both stood up, retreated back to where the other Journals rested, and surveyed their work. One circle curling around the two prone figures, Dipper stooping with exhaustion, Will with a smirk on Mabel’s face, and then another circle around the first. The ring was sectioned off into multiple pieces, and inside each box was a design Pacifica had drawn.

All Pacifica knew was that the Author said this would bind Will for an indeterminate amount of time. Or any demon, really, but somehow, this circle seemed tailored to the dream demon in particular, and if it were any other time she was sure Gideon would be raring to go research it.

“Hey,” she said, and Gideon looked over at her. “You didn’t have to do this, you know.”

His laugh was soft and bitter, and he elbowed Pacifica’s side gently. “He froze everyone in Gravity Falls, Pacifica.”

“But – for them?” She jerked her chin forward to indicate the twins. Gideon followed the movement with his eyes. “You hate them.”

“I’m not like them,” Gideon said, and though it was quiet, his voice was firm.

 _True enough_. Pacifica lapsed into silence, and together she and her cousin watched the discussion between demon and boy unfold. It was clear neither of them were happy; the smile on Mabel’s face was forced, and Dipper’s entire body was as taut as a springboard. _He broke a rib, didn’t he...?_

“You like him?” Gideon asked into the silence. She stiffened in surprise, and he let out a humorless chuckle. “You were holding hands, Pacifica, and I’m not blind.”

“I never said that,” she said, though what part of his statement she was answering was unclear even to her.

“You have no idea what’s he done, Paz.”

“He’s killed people,” she interrupted, and at Gideon’s stricken expression she said grimly, “Yeah, I know what he and Mabel do in their basement, G. He told me.”

“He did?”

“Yeah.”

“Unbelievable,” Gideon said, and when she glanced over he was shaking his head. “He really must like you. And you’re still...?”

She watched him for a bit before looking forward again. Dipper gave no indication he noticed her, but she doubted he didn’t sense them nearby; really, it was a wonder Will hadn’t looked over once since they started drawing the circles, but that probably had something to do with the nature of the circles themselves.

“I know I shouldn’t,” she said at length. “But I... I dunno, Gideon. He’s so pretty. And he makes me laugh, and I like talking to him.”

“I won’t judge you,” Gideon said.

“Really?”

“Much.”

“Wow, cuz.”

“If he so much as looks at you wrong, I’ll pummel him myself – but, you know, I trust your judgment.” He sounded defeated. “Not like you’ll listen to me anyway.”

“Aww, G. I always listen to you.”

“You _hear_ me. It’s not the same thing.”

She opened her mouth to respond – and then Dipper rose to his feet, shouted something garbled, and swept his uninjured arm in a wide arc across from him. Mabel did not move an inch when the bladed cyan slammed into her body, not at first; one second, then two, and then her head snapped back, mouth open in a soundless scream, and she collapsed onto the ground. Dipper wavered for a few seconds before neatly following her down, his entire body twitching as an unearthly roar filled the air.

* * *

“This is _bullshit_ ,” Mabel said out loud, carefully spinning herself around to see if there was anything to see. There wasn’t, and with a scowl she floated herself downward, seeking a floor or ground that wasn’t there. Did it count as using her magic if she wasn’t actually inhabiting a physical form? Or if she had just been rudely removed from her mindscape (thanks, Dipper)?

And then she blinked, and suddenly the world around her bloomed into view. She was in her room, in the Manor, and the halls were filled with stately silence as she held herself still, casting her senses as far as she could. A glance out her window gave her a pretty view of Gravity Falls (that was weird, ~~her window didn’t face the town~~ usually the weather wasn’t so clear), and everything seemed to be in place, down to her show clothes and the amulet studded on her headband, smooth under her fingers when she reached up to touch it.

Her bearings collected, she walked out of her room. The halls were decked with rich, dark wood, highlighted here and there with cyan fabric dipping along the walls, portraits of ancestors long dead decorating the bare spots. Somber; quiet. She’d always ~~wanted this~~ loved the Manor because of this, as if it had been designed with her in mind, and she smiled as she made her way to the front hall.

“There’s the queen!” her uncle said as soon as she walked towards the stairs. He was grinning from ear to ear as she descended, and she was temporarily confused until he added, “Would you like to see what your fans have gotten you today?”

She ~~never got~~ loved presents from the townsfolk: they came every day in an endless stream, begging for her attention so they could feel adored, and she would deliver sometimes if she felt like it. She always kept track of who gave her what, though, or at least her uncle did, and whenever someone didn’t get something for her, she would be sure to “encourage” them not to forget again.

(She thought of all the torture devices downstairs and giggled.)

As she approached the pile of neatly-wrapped parcels, one last townsfolk rushed in, bright cyan box in hand. She gave Mabel a smile and a curtsey, handing off the gift to uncle Stan, but Mabel could see the veiled fear in her eyes and this was _perfect_ , she loved her life so much. Mabel gave the girl a nod and she ran off, and Mabel knew without seeing that her expression had twisted to one of pure, unadulterated fear when her back had turned.

Something was missing, though. Something... big. She knew it.

“Where’s Gideon?” she asked.

She didn’t hear him until his hand was on her arm and then he _kissed her cheek_. “Hey, Mabel,” he said in her ear, and this was the best day of her life in a series of wonderful days.

~~She wondered where Dipper was.~~

* * *

Dipper tried to sit up. He found very quickly that his broken rib was having none of that, so he remained prone on the ground, sucking in on breaths as Will, tiny triangle Will, floated above him, eyes shut with all four limbs drooping towards the ground. Beyond him was a floating black and cyan orb. Etched onto its surface was a star with gleaming thread shooting after it, and Dipper knew instantly that that was where Mabel was.

Moments later, soft hands were on his shoulder, and then another pair had grabbed his and agony shot through his entire body as they pulled him to his feet, keeping his torso thankfully, thoughtfully straight. Pacifica’s blue eyes greeted him the moment his own focused long enough to see anything; his foggy brain slowly added two and two until he realized it was probably Gideon who was behind him. Huh. Compassion from that particular source was unexpected.

He had absolutely no magic left in him, not even a spark to contact Mabel through their mental link. He was going to have to hope his broken rib didn’t poke his lung or anything in the near future.

“Your Gleeful theatrics are over the top,” Gideon said. Will was still floating seemingly lifelessly above them, though Dipper could tell that the demon was merely winded, not unconscious. Dipper coughed, winced because that hurt, winced again because _that_ hurt, and in the end went for remaining totally still.

“To be fair,” he said after a moment, his voice wavering and unsteady, “Will is not a Gleeful.”

“I s’pose that makes it worse,” Gideon agreed, uneasy.

“Mabel’s in that bubble thing, I’m guessing?” Pacifica said. Dipper realized after a moment that they had effectively manhandled him out of the – ring on the ground. He recognized a few symbols from his Journals after he squinted at them for a few moments, but the circles were new. He wondered what they did for about ten seconds before he belatedly realized that this was probably the exorcism thing Gideon had mentioned earlier.

“Seems so,” Gideon answered when it became clear Dipper was too dazed to say anything. “Wonder how we get in?”

Dipper, in any circumstance, would’ve retorted with something sharp and stinging – _magic, duh_. Instead he leaned back on his heels and sucked in a breath, feeling very much like he’d just been run under a steamroller. “Key, maybe,” he managed after a few moments.

“Can’t use your magic?” Dipper shook his head, and Gideon laughed. “Have to run around with us plebeians again. How does it feel?”

“G, stop.”

“Fine, miss I-like-a-serial-killer. See if I ever help you again.”

Dipper shot Gideon a dirty look, but Pacifica put on his shoulder and he leaned against her absently, head on her shoulder. “S’bullshit is what this is,” he muttered after a few moments. So close, yet so far.

“Couldn’t agree more, bucko,” Pacifica said, but her eyes were not intent on him, instead staring at the tiny triangle floating just a bit off-center of the circle. “Who wants to go talk to Will?”

“Isn’t he breaking the deal by hurting Mabel with his powers?” Gideon asked.

Will sniffed audibly.

“Not hurting her,” Dipper translated, even now having a general idea of what Will was thinking. They’d known each other for a long time. “Just... trapping her. Something. She’s safe.”

“If you say so,” Gideon replied. He turned to Pacifica. “Can I go now?”

“Don’t be a butt, G. You promised you’d help the Gleefuls in exchange for the Journals, and I’m pretty sure Dipper can’t do much else except sway in place.”

“Shut up,” Dipper muttered, even though it was true.

“Technically, I _did_ help them. They never specified how much. And everyone's been freed, finally.”

“Dipper literally begged for your help, Gideon. They _need_ you. Can’t you just be reasonable for once in your life?”

“Wow, that’s low, Paz.”

Pacifica gave him a Look, one that said _you absolute moron_ , and then said, “And who knows what Will might do once the circle wears off?”

There was a prolonged pause, during which Pacifica glared and Gideon attempted to glare back before finally glancing away. “Argh, _fine_.” He muttered something under his breath, something Dipper couldn’t quite pick up, and then he was walking away, intent on the other Journals still lying flat on the ground.

“You’re the best girlfriend,” Dipper whispered, reaching up to rub at his eyes. Pacifica merely knocked her head against his, raising a hand to card her fingers through his hair, but he could just see her smile in his peripherals.

“I’m your girlfriend now, huh?”

“I love you.”

Her hand stilled, just for a moment, before resuming its slow trek through his curls. “You hardly know me,” she said at last.

“I am abhorrently attached to you anyway. I figured you should know.”

He can feel her nod. “All right.” A few more passes through his hair. “I’m not sure if I can say the same back to you. Not yet.”

“I can wait.”

“You’re not very patient, Dipper.”

“For you, I can wait,” he amended, but Pacifica did not look assured.

Will sniffed again. When Dipper opened one eye, he could see the triangle vibrating anxiously from his invisible perch, hands wringing as he mumbled words to himself in a language Dipper couldn’t understand. The bubble entrapping Mabel loomed ominously behind him, black and cyan and seemingly rotting at the edges.

“Doesn’t seem like we need a key,” Gideon said without warning, trotting up next to them. Pacifica gently pushed Dipper away before grabbing his hand, as Gideon explained, “As long as Will lets us, we can walk right in.”

“Will we be stuck in there, too?” Pacifica asked.

“Only if we want to be, I think,” Gideon said. “There’s nothing else on this kind of thing in the Journals, though, so take my word with a grain of salt.”

There was a silence as the three contemplated this. Will continued to sob softly from inside the circle.

“Maybe one of us should stay out here, make sure Will doesn’t do anything?” Gideon asked, hope tinging his tone.

“You could not touch him,” Dipper said with a tired smile. “If he could do this to Mabel, what could you do to him?”

He took a step, half-expecting to collapse in a heap, fully expectant of the sharp shout of complaint from just about every muscle in his body. He didn’t fall and Pacifica walked with him, and then he took a deep breath, straightened as best as he could, and continued to go forward. His steps were small and hobbling but certain, and after a few moments, Gideon fell in beside him.

They passed Will as they neared the bubble. The demon let them go without as much as a snarky remark, eye flicking downwards when Dipper shifted his gaze over to him, and then they were at the bubble and Dipper reached out a hand. The surface rippled when his fingers came into contact, and when he pushed a little more, his hand sunk in up to his wrist.

“Uh, after you,” Gideon said.

“Wimp,” Pacifica replied, and Dipper would have laughed if it didn’t hurt so much as he took the few steps forward and was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I started writing this for _fluff_ ," I grumble as I continue to write plot-advancing things instead.


	7. rule number six: gleefuls do not leave their friends behind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mabel's dream world is weird; fortunately, familial love - and friendship - trumps all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No serious warnings this time around. There are bones mentioned at some point, though. And Dipper is still injured, so some mentions of blood, too.
> 
> (If you can't read the glitch text, try mousing over them.)

The silence was oppressing.

The landscape looked exactly the same as the one they had just left – for all intents and purposes, it was the same old Gravity Falls in all of its small-town splendor, sprawled between tall, foreboding coniferous trees with mountains edging upwards in its skyline. The buildings bustled with people, the clouds moved lazily across the sky, and even the tall Tent of Telepathy was in place in the parking lot of a used car dealership. And yet, for all of this, it was dead and completely silent, as if someone had found the mute button and smashed it in.

There was no traffic in the streets - no cars, no bicycles, nothing, just distant pedestrians who walked along with ducked heads and quick, fearful steps. Footsteps didn’t echo on the pavement. Not a bird chirped, not a squirrel chattered, and when Gideon moved forward slightly, the crunch of his shoe on a dry leaf seemed to explode through the not-emptiness. His face was pale but his jaw was set, and his knuckles shone white through his skin as he clenched the straps of his backpack.

Pacifica took note of all of this in a span of a second, and, really, that was all the time she could spare – Dipper’s breath came out in a wheeze, then two, gunshots in the quiet, and his grip on her hand was a little painful. They had to take care of this quickly, both for his sake and because she really, really did not want to be here.

“Let’s get ‘em,” she whispered into the void, and when she began to walk, her two boys followed.

* * *

Dipper knew exactly where Mabel was. He knew that the moment he stepped into the streets and Wendy Corduroy dropped on one knee and greeted Gideon as “the King,” and him as “the Queen’s brother.” Gideon had sputtered, of course, both because of the title’s implications and because he had never once been addressed in such a way, and it’d been Dipper who had responded immediately with a cool, distant smile and a nod because he’d _known_ right away. He didn’t need magic to guess at what Mabel’s deepest fantasy was, what she craved beyond all else, and Wendy’s behavior only cemented the idea that this world catered to her desires.

His chest was killing him, perhaps literally, but when he whispered an apology to Pacifica – bearing the brunt of his weight at this point – she only brushed him off with strained smile and a shake of her head. Gideon pretended not to notice as he took the lead and pointed them to the Manor.

There were a number of people milling about the entrance to the place as they approached, but they all moved aside and watched with wide eyes when Gideon strode forward, unwavering, and pushed open the doors. Dipper and Pacifica followed him in, and the first thing they ran into was –

“Ah, Dipper. You are a bit earlier than I expected, truthfully.”

It took him only a split second to react; finally, his brain was sloughing off the sluggishness, and so Dipper looked into the eyes of himself and nodded, once. His dream world copy nodded back, a tiny curl to his thin lips.

“I do not suppose you would explain the situation?” Dipper asked his copy, as Pacifica and Gideon looked on with no small sense of bemusement.

“There is no need. We both know you already know what is going on.” Dream Dipper tilted his head, and Dipper mirrored him exactly. “Our sister’s welfare is paramount to all else, of course. I am thusly obligated to prevent you from removing her from here, where she is happy.”

“I understand. I am equally obligated to do the opposite.”

“Quite.” His copy nodded, smiling slightly. “You are in no shape to win; however, Mabel will be happy to meet the real one of us, so I will guide you to her. Perhaps you will convince her in other ways.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Of course. We are gentlemen, after all. Though I will backstab you the moment you let your guard down.”

“Naturally.” Then Dipper blinked and clarified, “Just me? Not them?”

His dream self's smile widened. “Mister Pines is untouchable here. And Pacifica... well, it carries over, you see.”

Dipper would have found that embarrassing had Pacifica reacted to it appropriately. As it was, she did not: Gideon made a choked sound, and Pacifica wondered aloud, “Does that mean there’s a copy of me here, too?” her grip on Dipper’s hand tightening.

“Of a sort, yes,” his dream self said, smile softening into something else, something that Dipper suddenly hoped Mabel would never see. “It is rather unimportant, though, as it stands.”

“Will we run into her?”

“It is doubtful,” his dream self said with a quirked eyebrow. He clearly found the whole thing amusing. “Mabel is this way, if you will follow me.”

Dream Dipper bowed, a sweeping gesture made all the more dramatic with the dark flair of his cape. Dipper wondered if that was how he looked like when he did it on stage – somehow, he doubted he pulled it off that smoothly – and he didn’t hesitate to follow when his dream self began to walk. Mabel knew exactly how he thought, or at least was fairly close; it was no surprise she had so perfectly copied him here, and though Gideon and Pacifica walked dubiously beside him, he knew they would be all right, at least for now.

* * *

Mabel was seated on a literal throne when Not-Dipper led them into what Pacifica presumed was her bedroom. Or maybe both her and Dipper’s bedroom, since there were two beds? Whatever, the important part was that Mabel was on a throne, and that the throne – oh god, she was going to be sick.

“She always did have a fondness for femurs,” Dipper murmured, eyeing the throne made of literal bones with an expression of faint distaste, as Mabel sprang to her feet.

“Dipper!” This was directed at Not-Dipper, who raised an eyebrow and stepped back to gesture to Real-Dipper. Mabel either didn’t notice or chose to ignore it. “Where have you been? I was looking for you!”

“About,” Not-Dipper said vaguely, folding his hands neatly behind his back, beneath his cape. “My apologies. I was waiting for your brother to arrive.”

(Pacifica knew that Not-Dipper was a shade of the real thing, but she was surprised to see how easily he accepted himself as lesser. Self-awareness was something most people had, to be sure, but he seemed to be taking it to the next level. Didn’t he know that he would disappear if Mabel was removed from here?

... What did this say about the real Dipper?

She squeezed Dipper’s hand. He squeezed back, expression soft when he briefly looked over at her, and she let out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.)

She had to give Mabel credit: it took the girl less than a second to figure out what Not-Dipper meant, and Not-Dipper didn’t even bat an eye when Mabel went past him and enveloped the real Dipper in a hug. Pacifica released his hand automatically and she quickly stepped back to where Gideon was standing to observe the siblings, and Not-Dipper put himself beside them, expressionless but with a prideful hitch in his shoulder.

“You cannot stay here, sister mine,” Dipper said when they parted. His hands rested on her shoulders.

“But Dipper, it’s wonderful here,” Mabel said, beaming, reaching up to curl her fingers loosely on his forearms. “We can have whatever we want. The townsfolk love us. Did you see the presents they brought to the front?” A pause – and then, in a delighted whisper that sent a shiver of unease down Pacifica’s spine, “Have you seen the basement?”

Dipper blinked at her. Then he tilted his head slightly and said slowly, “Mabel, this is not _real_.”

“It most certainly is,” Mabel said with that same, huge smile, releasing him to pinwheel around the room. Her laugh is bright and beautiful. “Maybe it isn't in the real world, but it  _is_ real.”

“It is a lie,” Dipper said steadily. His whole body quivered with effort, but his resolve was unwavering. “This is fake. You are alone here. These people are not _real_ , Mabel; nothing here is.”

Mabel stared at him for a few moments, and the moment of stillness seemed disorienting and wrong in this different version of the world – and then Pacifica closed her eyes when the girl began to laugh.

* * *

“I don’t care for _reality_ ,” Mabel said to him. Her smile was taunting and cruel, something he’d seen directed at many but never at him; it was a slap to the face in more ways than one. “Why should I return to a world where I will lose everything?”

Dipper folded his hands behind his back and physically braced himself, one knee extended slightly so he could balance on his unwieldy feet, and he sorely wished he could sink into her mind and understand what his sister was thinking. He didn’t say anything, though, didn’t even try to explain himself, instead fixing a steady, even gaze on his sister, feeling the dull pounding in his forearm and the bright burn in his chest and the heady buzz of magic loss weighing down his mind.

“Look at this,” Mabel said, gesturing around herself. The Manor was indeed different – detailed in their bright signature cyan, dark wood and soft light seeping from the bottom trims of curtains over windows; a throne of bones, destruction and violence in every cut scarred into the walls. “It’s everything we could ever want, brother. Everything!”

His dream self had a serene expression on his face and Dipper briefly exchanged glances with him. It was odd, like looking in a mirror but not quite, and after a few moments Dipper blinked and looked back to his sister. Mabel’s certain smile had faded slightly as she, too, looked between them, and then she said, “I suppose it’d be weird having two of you here.”

“We are not the same,” Dipper said, at the exact same time his dream self did, identical down to similar inflections and equal levels of vehemence. Dipper could feel both Pacifica and Gideon startle behind him, and he reflected that both Will and Mabel had outdone themselves in this fantasy world, truly. “He is a magical construct.”

“ _Dipper_ ,” Mabel said, as if scolding a small child, to which Dipper bared his teeth and did not apologize.

His dream self merely nodded, self-deprecating and brutally honest;  _am I truly like that?_ Dipper wondered. “He is correct. I am not real, however important that is.”

Dipper jumped in before Mabel could and said, “And I am not staying here. I cannot stay here. And neither can you.”

“Like you could drag me out,” Mabel said with a sneer, stepping over to stand over with his dream self, hand hovering above his shoulder as if to protect him - not close enough to touch, but Dipper didn't like it all the same. “You can barely stand, brother mine.”

“And whose fault is that, I wonder,” Dipper said snippily. Whatever guilt she may have felt didn’t show on her face.

“You said you’d do anything for me. I’m asking you to stay. What’s so hard about that?”

“I will always do what I think benefits both of us. There are things in the real world I do not want to leave behind.”

“What could possibly be better in the real world than here?” Mabel threw her arms out. “Our parents could come back, Dipper, if I really wanted it.”

“You know it would not be them. We just went over this; they would be magical constructs - ”

“But it’d be close enough, wouldn’t it?”

That was a little stab of heat in his heart – he tried not to let it show on his face, but he must have failed because her smile faded. “Brother?” she asked. Not-Dipper took a step forward and Mabel threw a glance between them again, eyebrows furrowed as Dipper continued to watch her, feeling cold and hot and alone all at once.

“So you would prefer a shade of who I am,” he said in a hollow voice, after a few seconds had passed. “A shadow of who Gideon is to simper at your side. An echo of our parents.”

“Maybe I would, but not for you,” she said quickly, vehemently. Dipper merely stared her down, disappointment pulling at his already-drooping shoulders, and now her smile was gone and she said, “ _Never_ you. Dipper, I’d never – we always do things together, I’d never – ”

His dream self advanced further. “Is he bothering you, Mabel?”

“No! No, don’t, he’s fine. I just need a minute. With him. Alone.”

Dipper didn’t flinch when his dream self’s gem flashed cyan, and Not-Dipper’s smile was starched and bright to the point of blinding when he leaned toward her and said, “You know we will only do what is best for you.”

Mabel snapped her fingers. Not-Dipper’s spine straightened almost comically quickly, though the only sign of his displeasure was the grimace of his face as he stepped out the door, much like a robot would move, stiff and unwilling. Pacifica and Gideon were not affected similarly, which Dipper appreciated with private relief, and he murmured a _thank you_ when Pacifica approached and looped his uninjured arm around her shoulders, carrying some of his weight.

“We’re not leaving,” Pacifica said, as if it wasn’t already obvious.

“I don’t expect you to,” Mabel said; she sounded more resigned than anything else, and this, above all else, worried Dipper the most.

* * *

“Do you think our parents would be proud of us, brother?”

Dipper gave Mabel a slow, even blink.

“Perhaps,” he said, though Pacifica can see he was made uneasy by the sudden change in subject. “I do not have the ability to communicate with the dead.”

There was a sharp intake of breath behind her; _Gideon_ , she thought, _has to be Gideon_ , she had no idea it was possible to talk to dead people, and she didn’t notice that her own shock was so visible until Dipper make a soft sound in the back of his throat and she realized her grip on him was uncomfortably tight. She loosened it as Mabel said, “Do you think they would still love us, knowing what we do?”

“I could not say,” Dipper said, smooth and evasive. He added almost as an afterthought, “They always liked you better.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“Actually, I do.” Perhaps that was why Not-Dipper so easily accepted his lesser position. Pacifica breathed quietly through her nose. “Is there a point to this tangent?”

“We could have parents again, Dipper,” Mabel said, spreading her arms wide. Her smile is small, but it’s there. “Parents who love us no matter what. Parents who won’t die!”

“To what end?” Dipper answered, biting off the last word harshly. “We have survived - no, _thrived_ without them. It will not be the same. It will not be real. It will not make you _happy_ , sister.”

“I’m happy right now, Dipper,” Mabel said. Her smile grew. “You can be happy with me.”

“And what of Gideon? What of our great-uncles?” Dipper’s eyes narrowed. “You would toss everything away for a dream?”

“It’s like free will, Dipper; we probably don’t have it, but it certainly feels like we do,” Mabel said. “This is more than good enough, don’t you understand? We could have uncle Ford here again!”

“We would have a memory of him,” Dipper snapped. “Not the real thing. A bland version that shows you only what _you_ want to see, and I do not want that.”

“We think so alike already, Dipper,” Mabel said; “If we both work together, we can make the spitting image of – ”

“You would let Will win?”

Gideon’s voice. Pacifica bit her lip and dared not turn around to look at him, and Dipper froze in place, tensing against her. Mabel’s mouth hung open, lips parted in a perfect ‘o’, and slowly, slowly her jaw closed and clenched tight.

“Admit it,” Mabel said, cyan eyes flicking over to Pacifica’s cousin. She sounded angry, but Pacifica got the sense that she was on the defensive, not snappish because of him but snappish because she was afraid to hear his answer. “You’d be happier if I was gone. You never liked me anyway.”

Dipper’s frown deepened, but whatever he was going to say was lost when Pacifica tightened her arm around him and shook her head. He eyed her for a few moments, quiet and uncertain, but eventually he gave her a veiled nod and turned away again, stiff and coiled like a cobra ready to strike. Pacifica let out a breath and stared at the side of Gideon’s baby face, trying not to imagine what would happen if he said the wrong thing.

Gideon was still hesitating. Mabel was deathly quiet, but she didn’t voice any of her own conclusions as the silence dragged on and on through the heavy, tense air. Dipper’s breaths rattled through his ribcage with near-silent pained hisses, and Pacifica noticed with a tiny start that she was holding hers in, sweaty palms and nibbled lips.

“I think I could like you,” Gideon said at last, and Dipper’s eyes narrowed and Pacifica screamed inwardly in frustration.

“So you don’t like me,” Mabel said, and now she just sounded dead.

“Mabel, you have to realize that you’ve forced me to do everything with you.” He raised a hand, began counting off of his fingers. “Made me go on a date. Made me hang out with you. Forced me to go where you wanted, no matter what I said. Did what you wanted to do. Even now, you just said you’d prefer a, a simpering idiot who looked like me.” Mabel did not react, so Gideon pressed, “You never asked me how I felt, or what I wanted, or whether even I was happy.” The hand fell. He looked tired but serious now. “So, no, I don’t like you.”

Mabel didn’t say anything.

“But I think I could.”

Still nothing. Dipper let out an inaudible curse under his breath, and Pacifica felt very much like echoing him.

“Dipper thinks the world of you, Mabel, from what he’s told me and from what I’ve watched him do,” Gideon said after a while, and Dipper’s head snapped in Gideon’s direction, surprise evident in his expelled breath. “There has to be something you show him that no one else ever sees – something that he can love, irrevocably. Or maybe that’s just because he’s your twin, or maybe it’s something else, I don’t know. But if it isn’t – if you really are different when you’re not trying to impress me – maybe we can be friends.”

Mabel said something, too quiet for anyone to catch. Gideon ignored it and said softly, “If that happens, we’ll see where it goes from there.”

By the end of Gideon’s little spiel, Dipper’s expression had schooled itself into one of careful blankness. Pacifica had no such qualms of gaping at her little cousin, because there’s no way he would follow up on what he’d just said, but then, but maybe, maybe he would. Gideon didn’t often make promises, and even though that hadn’t been a promise, even though it had been more like a confession, it had to mean something.

“Dipper,” Mabel said after a few moments.

“Mabel?”

“I want to go home.”

* * *

Mixed messages. Dipper knew this wasn’t the end.

“There is no one at home, sister,” he said, keeping his voice lilting and gentle. Mabel was still watching Gideon, but he kept his face carefully neutral just in case. “There is only the Manor. There is only our great-uncle. There is only me.”

Mabel finally glanced over at him. When she took a few steps forward, Pacifica released her hold on him and stayed only to steady him before moving back. Mabel ignored it all in favor of reaching for his hands, which Dipper allowed her to take.

“Come back with me to Gravity Falls, Mabel,” he said, a plea more than a request.

In response, she said, “Awkward sibling hug?”

He huffed, smiled, obliged. They did not say the accompanying _pat, pat_ in anything louder than a whisper, but it was there and Dipper’s heart swelled with pride and love all at once.

“Uh,” Gideon said from behind them, and when he and Mabel separated, his dream self was standing in the doorway, chest heaving and an animalistic snarl tearing itself from his throat. His expression was one of pure fury - and then every one of them lost their footing at the floor bucked and heaved with absolutely no warning.

Dipper grabbed hold of his sister's hand as the walls around them cracked and groaned and the building began to tremble, building, building into a quake – and then, before Dipper could react, his copy turned and launched cyan fire at one side of the doorway. Screams followed almost immediately, unnatural and eerie, and Pacifica’s face hardened as she hooked an elbow through Gideon's and put herself in front of the boy. Dipper’s breath caught; she was the only thing between them and the flashing cyan menace that was his dream self.

But... no, that wasn’t it, was it?

_ T̯ͦͮh̆̔̏e͓̙᷃ w̶̡ͪo̙᷀̀r̸̼͂l͓ͨͭd̈᷀͟ c̟ͮ᷁o͎̲͠l͔͓̒l̵᷊̥ȃ̤̭p̷ͫͨs̮᷈̒e̩̞̾s̮̩͇ a̋̉̓ṡ̤̾ w͉͕᷇ĕ̂̓ s̓᷁̚p̱ͨ͠ē̩̍a̘᷄́k̇̐ͭ.̏͌̄ _

The sound was guttural and the hair on the back of Dipper’s neck prickled, but for all intents and purposes, past the flashing eyes and sharp, jagged movements, his dream self still looked identical to him.

_ C̵ͯ̊o͎̤͒n̯̐ͅg᷂᷊͗r̋͘͡a̻͂ͧt̏̃᷾u͔̦᷄l̜̣ͬá̭́t̴ͨ̔i̴͚̣o̱̮͛n͕ͣ͑s̗᷃͡,̡̝ͤ D̟̞̈́ī̬̇p̰ͦ͂p̴̬ͅe̻̹ͪȓ̆̊.̓͒͢ I͈͂̒t͕ͦ̒ s̭̠̉e̹̤͆eͣ᷾᷾ṃ͚͙s̙̣̟ y̬᷆͝ǫ̥̑u̵̧̱ h̗̟̚a͇̟͚v̬̳͘e̩̰᷄ w͖̦͋ộ͞n͉͈͠.̸̧᷿ _

He didn’t do anything against them; it seemed like his dream self was keeping his distance, as if to accent the fact that he meant no harm. Dipper wondered why for one precise second before past words echoed in his mind: _We are gentlemen, after all._

“Words can be powerful tools,” Dipper said softly, pain whispering against his mind as he met his copy’s eyes.

His dream self let out an echo of a laugh, conceding the point. _Y᷃ͩ͞o͈ͭ̍ṵ̶̋ d̨͏̏ȍ̹͎ n̹ͣͅo̴᷂ͮt͚̪̂ h̵͓̠a̱̺ͤv͕̎̕e̼̐̑ l̵͔̍o᷂͎̒n̡͌̾ǧ̼᷆ t̨̝̽ö̯́͡ ė͚ͬs͇᷾̋c͇̓ͨȁ᷊ͅp̙̺͞e̠̻̍.̂̍͜ G̈͒ͧo͓̦͖ q͈̲̾ư̄̕ỉ̱̼c᷂̑᷅k͈̇̈l͙̳᷄y̧̙͟.ͤ͆᷆ I̡̨̻ w᷿͓͠i̩̓̿l̹᷆̉ĺ̬̈́ h̨̊̏o̱᷇͛l̶̨̲d̜̗͎ ẗ͈͍ḧͮͅe̡̐̓m̳̓͝ o̯̤᷈f̯̠̆f᷇͂ͦ f̶̆͠ō̶͐r̡᷄᷉ a̓͗̔s᷉̏̕ l̼̟̔o̲ͨ̅n̬̔̀g̈́ͬͯ a͓͔͡s̱̃̚ Ī̛ͬ c̛̬̔a͇̙͒n̟᷄͜.̩̭͋_

Mabel wasted no time, jerking her hand free and snapping an arm around her brother and dragging him along as fast as he could go without hurting himself. Pacifica and Gideon were close behind, but it was only Dipper who turned his head to look back and said, softly, “Thank you.”

Dream Dipper laughed. It was an awful sound. _I̙͏ͪt͘͘͠ i̢̞̣s͂ͤ͟ w̨̓̉h͔̲̿a̗ͦ͌t͚͑᷇ y᷊᷿̿o̶ͤ͛uͤͤͨ w͕͌᷅o̗̓̓u͚̩ͥl̢̼̂ḍ̞̌ d̛̂͌o̡͔᷊,̗͓̅ w̋͊᷆e̿ͦ̑rͨ͠͝e̬͐͘ y᷊̝̋o᷿̰ͯų̟̓ i̖͞͠n͒́͞ m̫̍͌ŷ̡̗ p̵̑᷈ĺ̓ͪa᷂̐ͯc̣̳̓e̺ͩ̈,͍̈ͨ_ , his dream self said, before he disappeared in a flash of cyan and Dipper stumbled as Mabel jerked him forward.

The trek through the Manor was made without speaking, but not without silence; crashes and echoes of them reached their ears from seemingly all sides, and Dipper was fairly certain that something was on fire, or that multiple somethings were on fire. They didn’t run into anyone, though - his dream self's doing, without doubt - and when Pacifica moved ahead to bust through the Manor’s doors, the only thing waiting for them beyond was quiet emptiness, a sharp juxtaposition to the destruction they were leaving behind.

“How do we get out?” Mabel asked, suddenly, as their feet pounded on the asphalt of a silent Gravity Falls. Dipper shook his head and Pacifica merely glanced over at Gideon, who was huffing and puffing and it was honestly a miracle he was keeping up with their longer strides. Mabel probably had something to do with that.

Gideon didn’t answer, but he did take the lead. The sense of urgency was still there even as the pace consequently slowed, though Dipper almost didn’t notice how the world seemed to become more and more gray as they went on until he blinked and the whole place was entirely monochrome. Pacifica was a bright burst of color ahead of him, and he was suddenly thankful for her odd penchant of wearing neon.

“Anyone got somethin’ sharp?” Gideon asked suddenly, one pudgy hand reaching out. It flattened out against what seemed like air.

“Is that a serious question?” Mabel said, reaching towards her waist. Somehow, even in a world like this that was entirely beyond her control, her favorite knife was there. She flipped it and caught it by the flat of the blade, offering it to Gideon hilt-first.

The boy hesitated.

“Perhaps you should do it, sister,” Dipper said after a beat past awkward had passed, and Mabel let out an amused snort and flipped the blade again, releasing him and marching forward. He barely managed to remain upright, a flare of pain bursting through his lungs white-hot, and he could barely watched as Mabel reached up and seemingly slit the landscape open with a squelch that reminded him of bodies in the dark.

The seam bled light blue, and Mabel let out a carefree laugh before stepping through. Gideon followed. Someone pushed him towards it, too – Pacifica – and then light overcame his vision and they were gone.

* * *

Pacifica was somehow not surprised when Dipper almost immediately passed out upon exiting the bubble. She was also not surprised when Mabel strutted right up to Will, got in his little triangle face, and snarled, “You’ve got a lot of nerve, Will Cipher.”

Will wasn’t drooping anymore. He didn’t look scared, though – mostly just tired and exasperated as he sighed, arms crossing.

“You’ve won, Shooting Star,” he grumbled without inflection. “Good job. Still can’t make me go away, though, or change everyone back from stone.”

Mabel’s teeth clenched. “I can wait.”

Will dipped slightly towards Dipper. “Can he?”

They needed to tape his ribs, Pacifica thought; tape his ribs, get his arm looked at. It had stopped bleeding, but he was a mess, dried blood crusted on his face and clothes and his breaths shallow and uneven. Couldn't bring him to a hospital when all of the staff was stone, could they?

Pacifica had laid Dipper on the ground at this point, careful and steady with his head tilted slightly sideways on her folded knees. Gideon was beside her, quiet and unmoving and supportive, and she watched as Mabel glanced over at her brother.

“What do you want, then?” Mabel finally said, each word dropping like a stone from her mouth.

“Revenge,” Will answered. His eye was steady on her face. “You haven’t treated me kindly, Mabel Pines.”

Pacifica pulled her sweater over her shoulders and wrapped it as tightly as she could around his arm. His own makeshift tourniquet was mostly dry, but her hands still came away red when she tied a knot in the sleeves of her sweater.

“What do you want?” Mabel repeated, her hands fisting at her sides, jaw set and eyes flashing.

Will stared.

“Well?”

Will stared some more.

Mabel sighed breezily and stuck out a hand. “I’m asking you to lay out the terms of your deal, Will. I want everyone in Gravity Falls to be restored back to normal, and then I want you to leave this town and everyone in it alone. What do you want in return?”

Will didn’t speak for a long time. Then:

“Every injury you ever inflicted on me will be inflicted on you for as long as I had them. Mental, emotional, physical – everything. One at a time until they heal, until you’ve felt them all.”

“Done,” Mabel said as soon as he’d spoken, instantly and without room for doubt, and then they were shaking hands, bright yellow fire coating their fingers. Mabel didn't so much as whimper as bruises bloomed all over her arms and legs and even her face, expression hard and stony, and when she let Will go, she stuck her tongue out at him with one hand reaching towards her waist. Where she had her knife, even now, even still.

Will didn't wait around, wisely enough. The air literally tore in front of him, revealing a place Pacifica would never be able to describe with words, and then Mabel's knife went flying, the tear closed, and the blade _thunked_ into a tree opposite them.

“Hospital for two,” Gideon decided, and Pacifica was inclined to agree.

* * *

Dipper woke up to the sound of soft crying. The lights were bright and the smell that hit his nose reminded him of the basement, but there was so much white that he knew he was in a hospital even before he could actually register the starched bed he was resting in. His chest ached but wasn’t uncontrollably painful and there was a dull pulse in his wrist that suggested he was currently connected to an IV. His arm, when he tried to lift it, was resting quietly by his side, and upon examination he could see that it had been bandaged and was no longer bleeding.

He bemoaned the loss of his only good hoodie before he turned his head to see where the crying was coming from – and lo and behold Mabel, hiccupping slightly as she reclined in the air and flipped through one of the Journals. The second one, he noted, as he squinted at the cover and saw the number two. His magic was weak but there was enough to answer his call as he tentatively crept down the trembling thread that connected them; the moment he touched her mental walls, Mabel jumped in surprise before whipping her head around to look at him, Journal dropping forgotten on her lap, and he sucked in a breath when a tidal wave of worry and concern and love flooded his mind.

He waited for it to subside a bit before sending a wave of his own, softer and smaller, waiting for her to smile before he asked, _Where is Will?_

 _Gone_. Dipper raised an eyebrow. _We hope so, anyway._

_“We”?_

_Gideon and I. We were... he should be gone._ She winced. _I made a deal with him._

Alarm coursed through him and he was suddenly aware of the beeping in the background, speeding up in time with his pulse. He took a few deep breaths and forcibly calmed himself down before he asked, _What were the terms?_

Mabel responded in images and feelings instead of actual words, before she concluded, _he upheld his end. He opened a rift and disappeared, and no one’s seen him since._

_He is free to wreak havoc anywhere except here now._

_He was free to do that before._

That was true, but Dipper sighed anyway and thought, _You could have at least worked the deal a bit more in your favor, Mabel._

 _I wasn’t thinking,_ his sister replied, miserable. _It was – you needed help. You could have died. I needed him to fix everything and so I accepted his deal and now it hurts so much._

_Share it with me._

Mabel shook her head vehemently, even as she shifted slightly and whimpered as a flash of pain flared brightly in her mind.

 _When I am better,_ he amended, _split the pain with me. It is the least I can do for you._

Mabel continued to shake her head, and for the moment he shelved the idea. He would bring it up on a day that was excruciatingly painful; she had never been gentle with Will, after all.

_I suppose we will not be having any shows for a while._

_You would be correct_ , Mabel said with a tiny nod. _Uncle Stan is not happy about that, but now that he has all three Journals, he’s willing to let it slide._

_Gideon let him borrow them?_

_Gideon is helping him._

... That was unprecedented. The boy had helped save Mabel and now this – Dipper made a mental note to thank Gideon later, however distasteful the idea.

 _You should rest, Dipper,_ Mabel said after a few beats of silence had passed. _The sooner you’re out of here, the sooner we can start doing things again._

_What kind of things?_

_Whatever regular teenagers are supposed to do, I guess._ That didn’t sound fun at all. It must’ve showed on his face, because Mabel added soon thereafter, _Uncle Stan is throwing a ball to celebrate the end of the weirdness._

 _Much better_ , Dipper thought with self-satisfied smugness, and Mabel’s laugh, though small, brought a smile to his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only real issue I have with this chapter is that it goes by fast. One chapter for the final climax? Silly. I guess I made it work, but I still feel like I should have drawn it out a little longer.
> 
> Also: you know how I keep complaining how there was so little fluff?
> 
> Turns out that's the problem with my headcanon Reverse Pines: they are fucked up people. Dipper is possessive and unfeeling and perfectly willing to manipulate the hell out of a situation to get what he wants, and Pacifica is _not_ like that. The relationship has a lot of potential to be unhealthy and disturbing, which is why I had to build up a lot of events in order for Pacifica to understand what Dipper is like and to prepare her for the consequences if she accepts Dipper's advances. I mean, let's recap - Dipper's big revelation wasn't very big at all, like, he'd known that killing people was ethically wrong, but it was _necessary_ , right, so it was at least somewhat justified in his head. Meeting Pacifica made him realize that that isn't how it works (even though Gideon had screamed at them as such for a few years now), but he's still kind of at the "oh........ it's not right......... right I knew that" stage and then he goes and declares he's in love with Pacifica and she's like UH, OKAY, WELL. Let's just say: give it time. 
> 
> (Mabel's relationship with Gideon is even worse: she has no restraint and happily makes Gideon do whatever she wants. This is disturbing and weird and not at all romantic. It is also why Gideon rejects her so vehemently, because, as they say, consent is sexy. If you're into sex. Which you will not find here, since I'm aro and sex-repulsed on top of that, so.)
> 
> But! Now we're at the point where Dipper doesn't enable Mabel's behavior and she's realizing her mistakes, so if all goes well... maybe Gideon will be able to open up to her after all. Maybe. Big maybe. I'd be scared to be her friend, to be honest. (I'd be scared to be Dipper's friend, too.) Especially if she started getting injuries that took forever to go away and left her in constant pain all the time. _Especially_ if it was her own damn fault in the first place. Because let's not forget the fact that she was, uh, mean to Will, to put it lightly. Like, feather-light. Like holy god she was a jerk and she loved every minute of it, pretty little sadist that she is. What a catch amirite.
> 
> BUT IN OTHER NEWS, there will be fluff next chapter. REJOICE. I know I am.

**Author's Note:**

> I was dragged into this AU kicking and screaming and now here I am throwing headcanons around. It turns out you _can_ grow up, kids.
> 
> Come find me [on tumblr](http://snowsheba.tumblr.com/)! :)


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